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MEN OF BUSINESS 



MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT SERIES 

TRAVELLERS AND EXPLORERS. By 
General A. W. Greely, U.S.A. 

STATESMEN". Uy Noah Hkooks. 

MEN OF BUSINESS. By W. O. Stoddard. 

INVENTORS. By P. C. Hi bekt, Jr. 






*i ■"■'' 



"\, 




CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 
(From a portrait by Brady.) 



MEN OF ACHIEVEMENT 



MEN OF BUSINESS 



BY 



WILLIAM O. STODDARD 




NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1893 



./ 7/-^ -^ ■ / 



, U 



Copyright, 1893, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



PREFACE 

The road to success in business is not a nar- 
row, hedged-in highway. It is not even one 
road, but many pathways, each of which may be 
followed across the great field of life, if entered 
by the type of human character adapted to it. 
The types are varied, and often they are blended. 
Any profitable study of them, however, can be 
best performed by selecting a few distinct and 
marked examples. This has been attempted in 
a series of brief character sketches of eminently 
successful careers, each emphasizing some domi- 
nant trait. It has been deemed well to employ 
the portraits of the living as well as of those 
whose work is finished. It is somewhat like a 
gallery, therefore, in which are presented like- 
nesses of the warrior, the statesman, the diplo- 
matist, the artist, the pioneer, the adventurer, 
the inventor, the explorer, the organizer, the 
foreseer, and other types of business men whose 
success is beyond dispute. 

The materials for these biographical studies 
have been obtained, as far as possible, from orig- 
inal sources, including valuable data never be- 
fore printed. With a large majority of the men 
selected, the author has been personally ac- 
quainted, and has drawn them from the life. 



4 PREFACE 

He has done so in the belief that each of these 
business careers, presented in outline, contains 
invaluable lessons for those who are willing to 
take them, and also that there is no more honor- 
able, useful, enjoyable path in life for young am- 
dition than that of the American business man, 

William O. Stoddard. 



CONTENTS 



I. John Jacob Astor — Romance, . 
II. Cornelius Vanderbilt — Compditio)}, 

III. Charles Louis Tiffany — Taste, 

IV. John Roach — Genius, 
V. Levi Parsons Morton — Development, 

VI. Edwin Denison Morgan — Variety, 

VII. Cyrus West Field — Tenacity, 

VIII. Chauncey Mitchell Depew — Gro-u'th, 

IX. Alexander Turnev Stewart — Perception, 

X. Philip Danforth Armour — Organization, 

XL Horace Brigham Claflin — Liberality, 

XII. Marshall Owen Roberts — Dash, . 

XIII. George Mortimer Pullman — Originality 

XIV. Peter Cooper — Invention. 
XV. Marshall Field — Business Principles, 

XVI. Leland Stanford — Councillor, 



PAGB 

9 
31 
S3 
75 
94 
III 

131 
161 
182 

197 
212 
229 
246 
264 
281 
295 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS 



Cornelius Vanperbilt, 
John Jacob Astor, . 
Charles Louis Tiffany, 
John Roach, 
Levi Parsons Morton, 
Edwin Denison Morgan, 
Cyrus West Field, . 
Chal'ncey Mitchell DErEW. 
Philip Danforth Akmouk, 
Horace Bkigham Ci.aflin, 
IVLarshali. Owen Roberts, 
George Mortimer Tillman, 
Peter Cooter, . 
Marshall Field, 
Leland Stanford, 



{Froniispi 



illustr-\tions in the text 



New York when Astor first saw it, 
Choteau's Pond— now in St. Louis, 
Harlem Plains, .... 
Statue of Cornelius Vanperbilt, 
One of the Early Steamboats, 
San Francisco in 1S4S, 
The Vanperbilt, 



FACING 




PAGE 


<■ 


9 


^' 


53 


^ 


75 


^ 


94 


Z' 


1 1 1 




13' 




161 


^ 


197 


/- 


212 


r 


229 


^ 


246 


^ 


264 


^ 


. 2S1 


y 


. 296 


/ 



PAGE 
16 



26 



40 

45 



8 LIST OF ^LLUSTIiATIO^^S 

lAC.E 

Mk. TniANV WHEN TwEN rv EiGHi Veaks of Age. . 57 
The TiKKANY Siore OrrosixE City Hall, . . . 5S 
The Store on the Coknek ok Buoaow ay ano Chambers 

Street in 1S47 64 

The Thiro Avente Haklem Bkidoe, built iiy John 

Roach in 1S64. . '. S5 

The U. S. Cruiser Chicago at Sea, . . . . -90 
The Old Morton Home at Middleboro, Mass., . . 96 
Ellerslie, Mr. Morton's Country Home at Rhine- 

CLIFF-ON-IIunSON, X. V loS 

Goyernor Morgan's Mother (from an old miniature). 112 
The Old Morgan Homestead at Windsor, Conn.. 115 

Bed of the Atlantic Ocean through the Cape Verd 

Islands, Azores, and the Telegraph Plateau, . 136 
The Great Eastern Laying the Atlani-ic Cable, 
Landing Shore End of the Cable Ar Heart's Con- 
tent. Newfoundland 

Shore End of Cable — exact size 

The Wholesale Store of A. T. Siewarp .S: Co., built 

IN 1S4S iJ>9 

Mr. Siewaki's House, TiiiKrY-FOURrH Street and 

FiFiH Ayenue, New York, 194 

Memorial Church at Garden City, . . .196 

The "Pioneer" Sleeping-car, 253 

.\ ViF.w OF Pullman, Ili -01 

Trial between Peter Cooper's Locomotive ''Tom 
Thumb'" and one of Stockton's and Stokes' Horse 

C.\Rs 271 

Peter Cooper's Locomoiive, iSjo 273 

Architecturai Motif of the buildings .vr Stankokd 

Universuv, 305 

ViF.w OF the Buildings CoMi'KisiNG the Leland Stan- 
ford, Jr., University. P.\lo Alto, Cai 310-311 

The inner Qu.vdrangle. Siwnford Univershy. . . 313 
Northeast Tower, Stanford University, . . . 315 



i;S 



John J»cob Astof. 



MEN OF BUSINESS 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 

The long romance of the world's commerce 
is like a pictiire-gallerv. The earlier pictures 
are oriental, but the gallery leads westward. 
Here and there, at intervals, there are striking 
changes in scenerv, races, costumes, and mer- 
chandise. Instead of being a record of com- 
monplace money-getting, it is full of wonderful 
stories of dreams which the dreamers undertook 
to realize. Thev went out through the Medi- 
terranean in the galleys of T3're and Carthage, 
and thev sailed down the Red Sea, no one knows 
how far, in the ships of the merchant king Sol- 
omon. The dreamers were mostlv mere boys, 
full of the hot enthusiasms of youth, but few of 
them ceased from their fascinated gaze into the 
future, the distant, the new. until age and the 
end drew the curtain belore their eyes. 

One of these visi^narv bovs, who cnuld not 
sta\ at honu- nor be contented with surroiuul- 
ings which had satished his ancestors, accom- 
plished remarkable things. Among others, John 



10 MEN OF BUSINESS 

Jacob Astor won a fortune, founded a family, 
aided in the earlier stages of the growth of 
a city and a nation, and left behind him ideas 
which were to be fulfilled in the third genera- 
tion. 

He was the fourth son of the highly respecta- 
ble village butcher at Waldorf, near Heidelberg, 
Germany, and several members of the family 
had already exhibited unusual ability and enter- 
prise. The generation to which he belonged (he 
was born July 17, 1763) had shown even more 
than had its predecessors that vigorous vital- 
ity which has enabled the old German stock to 
do so much both for the Old World and the 
New. 

There were schools in Waldorf. German 
youths of good families wxre by no means 
brought up in ignorance. There were facili- 
ties for higher education not altogether out of 
reach ; but these were to be sought, as a rule, 
by those who looked forward to lives of profes- 
sional scholarship. Most avenues for advance- 
ment were shut by caste and privilege, and the 
old order of things, from aspirants unsustained 
by wealth or hereditary rank. The Waldorf ho- 
rizon seemed very limited to the eyes of a boy 
who felt that he was capable of better things 
than supplying sausages and the like to a frugal 
and unambitious neighborhood. It was indeed a 
quiet place ; but, as the boy grew older, its still- 
ness Avas continually broken by war news, the 
reports of battles, stories of the sharp, sanguin- 
ary struggles which marked the last quarter of 



JOHN JACOB AST OR 11 

the eii^hteenth century. There was a begin- 
ning of varied activities throughout Europe, and 
especially in Germanv, from which wonderfid 
fruits were to come in the first decades of the 
next century. There was to be a vastly changed 
condition of things after the h^ng convulsions of 
the Napoleonic wars, but very little that was 
new could as yet be seen in Waldorf. 

Young Astor was a thoughtful boy, a reader 
of books, with literary tastes which were one 
day to find expression in a form that is endur- 
ingly useful. At the same time he was fidl of 
a fire of adventure which utterly forbade his 
contenting himself with the seemingl)' tame suc- 
cesses of scholarship. It was well for him that 
against this fire contended an uncommon degree 
of sturdy German prudence. His phenomenal 
motive power required, and was provided with, 
a remarkably heavy balance-wheel. 

Remaining in Waldorf was out of the question 
for such a boy, and, at sixteen years of age, he 
was on his way to London. There might have 
seemed something chimerical in the idea of add- 
ing one more human atom to the swarms of an 
already crowded hive ; but the mere means of 
earning a living had been made read}' for him. 
An uncle was a member of the firm of Astor 
&; Broad wood, manufacturers of pianos and 
other musical instruments, and Henry Astor, an 
older brother of John Jacob, was already in the 
employ of that concern. Under the name of 
Broadwood A: Co. it afterward attained wide 
reputation and importance, but at this early date 



12 MEN OF BUSINESS 

its business was limited. It could offer no pros- 
pect whatever for the future of a very ambitious 
young adventurer from Waldorf. It could give 
him something to do, for a while, however, and 
he could learn lessons in business, acquire the 
English language, hear all the news that came to 
London, grow taller, stronger, and make up his 
mind as to the direction of his next step forward. 
The arrival in London was made at a time 
when the thoughts of all England, and indeed of 
all Europe, were concentrated upon the chang- 
ing fortunes of the war for the independence of 
the British colonies in America. Very little was 
known, even in England, of the real state of 
things in these colonies ; but before the eyes of 
the Old World monarchies a young republic, 
unlike any that had been seen before, was fight- 
ing its way into life and a place among nations. 
All the young men on that side of the Atlantic 
were taking sides for or against the western 
phenomenon, and the fact that they did so 
changed the future of the world. 

Nevertheless, if any youthful resident of Lon- 
don had in his mind a dream of adventure in the 
New World, he was compelled to wait for the 
day of its realization, since all the seas were held 
by the vigilant cruisers of Great Britain. At 
last, and almost unexpectedly, the long war 
came to a close, and commercial communication 
with America was imiKMiectly ojiened in 1782. 
It was by no means safe or regular until long 
after the formal declaration of jjcace, in Septem- 
ber, 1783; but in the summer of the latter year 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR 13 

it was understood that emigrants from England 
would have a fair prospect of landing in Amer- 
ica. It was only a decent probability as com- 
pared with the Atlantic ferry service of the pres- 
ent day, and not a large number were found with 
sufficient courage to take the risk. 

Among those who were ready was young 
Astor, now a stalwart young man of twenty. 
The ship which carried him sailed for Baltimore 
at a date when the British fleet and army still 
lingered in possession of the city and harbor of 
New York. x\s to definite plans or purposes, he 
could fairly have said that he did not have any. 
He had left London behind him, and there was a 
new hope thrilling him as he looked westward, 
but that was all. England, exhausted by long 
wars and all but crushed by taxation, was having 
exceedingly hard times, and there was nothing 
lost by getting away from her. It was said that 
the colonies also were in a bad condition ; but 
they seemed to offer a continent, not a mere isl- 
and, for a boy to become of age in. 

It was a long, slow, tedious sailing vo3^age, but 
it had better fortune than many another that was 
undertaken during the perilous summer of 1783. 
The ship suffered no molestation from cruisers, 
nor from privateers, and her passengers saw noth- 
ing of the pirates which were then the grisly 
terror of the high seas. The passage was not 
even notably stormy, but it was nevertheless 
eventful for John Jacob Astor. On board the 
ship was a furrier from America, with whom an 
acquaintance was formed during the dull days 



14 MEX OF BUSINESS 

of tackiiii^ westward. I lis j)rcvi()iis cxj^cricnccs 
had made him well acciuainted with all the ins 
and outs of the adventurous calling which sup- 
plied his stock in trade. The whale-hsher\- it- 
self could not supply more materials for cpiar- 
ter-deck yarns than did the winter tramps of the 
tra})pers among the red men of the American 
wilderness. He coidd tell, too, of the haunts and 
ways of fur-bearing animals, and he knew the 
prices paid for raw furs and the profits to be 
made in preparing these for European markets. 
INIuch information was also given, incidentallv, 
concerning the claims and exactions of the Brit- 
ish Hudson's Bay Company and the probable 
changes which would follow the establishment 
of the independence of the United States, with a 
boundary along the old Canadian and great lakes 
line. It was evident that New York Citv, as 
soon as its British garrison should leave it, would 
hold a very excellent position with reference to 
the fur trade of the future, and a new idea of the 
life before him grew in the fervid imagination of 
the young German. 

It was true that he had no capital with which 
to start in the fur business. He knew n(^thing at 
all ab(nit handling furs. Slowl}' and with diffi- 
cult'\- he had hoarded the monev which had paid 
his passage, and he now had with him on theshij) 
nothing but a small inxoice ol flutes and other 
musical instruments, which he hoped to sell in 
America on coininissioii. This business he still 
proposed to do, but onh' as a stepping-stone, lor 
he saw that his other enterprise would require 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR 15 

hotli iKiticncc and a kind of technical education. 
As soon as possible, alter landing in Baltimore, 
he worked his way, economically, to New York, 
and it was a pretty long )onrney then. Good 
care was taken for making honest returns to his 
principals in London, so that they were afterward 
glad to continue business relations with their 
American correspondent. Exceedingly distinct, 
indeed, v/as his idea that he was now an Ameri- 
can, and that he had come to build up with the 
expansion of the new republic. 

On reaching New York he found all that the 
war had left of the young city still suffering 
under the long palsies of a semi-besieged garri- 
son town cut off from trade, 3'ear after year, 
and destitute of manufactures. It was a forlorn 
place, excepting for its evident natural advan- 
tages. As for the country at large, the old colo- 
nies were now States, but not yet a Union, and 
the new government was anything but firmly 
settled. There was almost no monev in circula- 
tion, and trade was reduced, mainly, to its primi- 
tive form of barter. 

The interior of New York State, very recently 
redeemed from the savage domination of the 
lroqiu)is, was an exceedingly rich tur-bearing re- 
gion, and its red hunters and trappers were no 
longer the allies or agents of the Hudson's Bay 
Company, however diligently that corporation 
might thenceforward compete for their peltry. 
It had by no means consented to give up its hold 
upon its old channels of supply frc^m within the 
American frontier, however. All alona* the bor- 



16 



^^EX OF nrsrxFSf: 



dor and the lakes, to the fort it had built at the 
foot of Lake Michii;an. it maintained stn)ng 
posts, i^arrisoned bv British troops, which it re- 
fused to surrender until thirty vears later, and at 
the end of another war. 

Astor found a furrier in New York, a Quaker, 
to whom he hired himself for such wag-es as he 
could ijet. that he miiiht earn a livelihood while 




Astor first saw it. 



picking up the trade. He was serving a hard 
apprenticeship, with a fixed determinatit)n of 
becoming a master and something more. He 
worked on. }>atientlv. all the while acquiring 
stores of general information concerning the fur 
geograj^hv of the American interior, its Indian 
tribes, its trappers and traders and their waAS. 
Bv rigid economv and bv some small trading of 
his own he made out to lav uj) a little nu)nev 



JOITX J AC or, AS TOR 17 

while learning- how to buv antl handle furs. He 
had very moderate help, too, from his intermit- 
tent relations with the musical-instrument busi- 
ness, although there was little enough to be done 
in that line in New York during the first years 
of its poverty after the War of Independence. 

The business and finances of the entire coun- 
try were still in a terribly unsettled condition 
when John Jacob Astor was at last able to "oen 
a little shop, on Water Street, begin to b.^y furs 
on his own account, put them into marketable 
shape, and dispose of them as occasion might 
offer. The national government itself seemed 
still upon a doubtful basis. There was no bank- 
ing system. State or national. The flag of the 
republic with diflicultv maintained its uncertain 
position on the seas. Commerce could be car- 
ried on only at great risks, for the Old World 
itself was in an uproar, with onlv occasional 
spasms of treacherous peace. 

Means of transportation and communication 
with the interior were slow and insecure. The 
best types of conveyance were furnished bv a 
North River sloop, a Mohawk Vallev wagon, 
and a train of ponies connecting, when obtain- 
able, at the western end of the route. Bevond 
the ponies were the red men. With these, tribe 
after tribe, there was a kind of peace which any 
man venturing among them could maintain and 
trust according to his own personal qualifications 
for dealing with them. Traders whose lack of 
courage, integritv, or knowledge of Indian nat- 
ure, unfitted them for dealing with the awful 



18 ^fEX OF nUSTN'ESS 

uncertainties of forest traffic, were now and then 
seen to enter the woods, never to return. Mr. 
Astor was not lacking- in either respect, and, 
during successive years after his small begin- 
ning, the shop on Water Street was at times 
shut up, or only occupied by an assistant able 
to inform inquirers that its master was away 
in the western wilderness or the northern moun- 
tains. 

Wherever his daring and arduous ventures 
carried him, he continually found his operations 
hindered, hampered, often defeated, by the open 
competition or the secret and dangerous ma- 
chinations of the agents of the Hudson's Bay 
Ccnnpany, He learned, as the nation itself was 
learning, that the first treaty of peace with Eng- 
land had not secured a definite frontier on the 
north, nor a trustworthy opening to the com- 
merce of the ofreat lakes, the West and the 
Northw^est. Through all he w^as forming ideas 
of his country's political future, the breadth and 
soundness and forecast of which indicated the 
mind of a statesman rather than the keenness of 
a mere trader. 

Concerning all the great regions beyond what 
w\as still regarded as the hunting-grounds of the 
Iroqiuns, Hurons, and a few other tribes, little 
was known. The men, of all sorts, with whom 
Mr. Astor was dealing, were as yet the only ex- 
plorers ; but from them he gathered informa- 
tion with which he was able to put into shape, 
gradually, his dreams of future enterprises. It 
was seen that these must wait, for the greater 



JOHN J AC on y\S7'nn 10 

part; but inoncv c'ii()iiij;"h had now been accumu- 
lated for another step forward as a merchant. 
This was a voyage to England, to form better 
business connections. The most important of 
these were to be made with houses in the fur 
trade, but he did not, even now, surrender the 
ver}^ first connection he had formed after setting 
out from Waldorf. It is an interesting exhibi- 
tion of the peculiar tenacity of his character 
that, while in England, he arranged with Astor 
& Broadw^ood to become their agent in Amer- 
ica, besides receiving consignments of similar 
goods from other concerns. On his return he 
opened a suitable salesroom and became the 
first regular dealer in musical instruments in the 
United States. He did not on this account give 
any less attention to his other undertakings, and 
these were reaching out, in several directions, 
beyond the fur business. An exceedingly im- 
portant part of them was growing the more 
rapidly because of the expansion of one of 
the peculiar national industries. Nowhere else 
could wooden sailing-vessels be built so cheaply, 
and American shipwrights were earning the 
highest reputation for the speed and stanch- 
ness of the craft they were launching. The 
prize to be won was the carrying trade of the 
ocean, and Mr. Astor was one of the pioneers of 
the American slii[)})ing interest. He not only 
bought or chartered vessels to carry his own 
furs, with whatever additional freights could be 
obtained, but the character of the return cargoes, 
and his management of them, speedily entitled 



20 MKN OF JH'SiyESS 

him to a hii^li rank among- the successful mer- 
chants ot New York. 

While keeping- fiilh- abreast of the swift march 
of progress in this direction, there was vet 
another fieUl in whicli he was presenting- a dif- 
ferent phase ol liis business capacity. The will- 
ingness to take risks which startled other men, 
and the enthusiastic faith in the future which 
seemed to spur him forward, seemed in him 
entirely consistent not only with habits of 
personal economy, but with the most sagacious 
keenness in the employment of surplus funds. 
He was singularly well acquainted with the 
character and resources of every noteworthy 
resident of Manhattan Island. He was there- 
fore better prepared than other men to do a 
great deal of the only kind of banking business 
which, for a time, the condition of affairs per- 
mitted. In so doing he became an impt)rtant 
helper of many other business men, and it was 
said that he rarely lost money by lending it. 
If his prt)fits were considerable, that is one o( 
tiie wcW understoc^d results of judicious bank- 
ing. 

Mr. Astor was now a married man, and he 
was fond of saying that although Sarah Todd 
brought him only three hundred dollars of 
dowry, she brought him also the best business 
partner that any man ever had. He was, how- 
ever, the possessor of large wealth, for those 
days, before he and his wife thought it needful 
to take a dwelling separate from their place of 
business. Mere display or ostentation tornuHl 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR 21 

no part of their ideal of earthly ha[)piness, then 
or afterward, and there was even sonietliing of 
political principle in his own leaning toward 
republican simplicity. It was inevitable that 
such a man should exercise a wide influence, 
socially as well as financially, and he was vigor- 
ously patriotic. 

In the year 1800 there was no other business 
man in New York who was rated at the huge 
sum of a quarter of a million of dollars. It was 
truly a tremendous capital with which to begin 
the business of the nineteenth century, and it 
was a good time for taking a long look ahead. 
The politics (jf the day, and anv forecast of the 
great events which might be expected by such a 
man, but not yet by the mass, were in close rela- 
tion to the business plans of America's foremost 
merchant. Ui)on the sea, American ships were 
as 3"et by no means secure, for the maritime 
laws of nations were but loosely interpreted and 
American commerce had outgrown any efficient 
watchcare of the infant navy of the United 
States. On land, our entire northern frontier 
was dominated by British posts and forces, no 
less than five considerable forts within the 
American lines being still held by British gar- 
risons, in hardly concealed alliance with the 
Indian tribes. These constituted a barrier not 
only to the fur trade but to the general settle- 
ment of the country. 

The Mississippi was our western boundary, 
and all beyond was French territory. The 
southeastern boundary was in doubt, but Florida 



22 .VEX OF BCSiyESS 

was Spanish, il the hordtM- rouU! bo ast^crtaincd. 
An unknow n \astncss on tlic Pacihc coast and 
in the niiiklle ot the continent was also Spanish. 
AVe were a power ol the Athuitic sh)[ie luih'. as 
vet. but American settlers were pushing- rapidlv 
into the Ohio countrw and there \vere vague 
rinn(M\s o[ uiightN- ciianges soon to ciMue. In 
1803 all men were startletl b\- the sutlden suc- 
cess of President JelTcrsou's daring- }>lan for the 
purchase of the Louisiana territory. It was 
Napoleon's blow at England, given almost in 
dosperatit)n, but it at tnice extended the northern 
frontier of the United States across the conti- 
nent to a much disputed point on the shore of 
the Pacific Ocean. It Avas somewhere awav 
north of the mouth of the Columbia River, but 
there were onlv vague ideas extant of the course 
and character of that exceedinglv tlistant stream. 
There was said to be but cme good seaport south 
ot the Columbia, and the bav of San Francisco 
was Spanish, as it was afterward to be Mexi- 
can. 

Mr. Astor's tlream of his country's future had 
long since been busy with the adtlition which 
had thus been made. lie knew more than other 
men concerning the wilderness bevoutl the Mis- 
sissippi and of the great northwest country. It 
was rich in furs now, but it was to bect>me a 
settled country and be cut up iulo States, ami 
across it was vet to be a highwax which would 
realize the wild ambition that led Columbus 
across the Atlantic. The new jKith to Asia was 
to be by way oi the Cnitetl States and tlie Pa- 



JOHN JACOB AS TOR 



9P. 



cific. The time was not yet ripe, but. during 
several years which followed, Mr. Astor was the 
head and front of the growing opposition to 
Britisli encroachments on our northern frontier. 
At the same time, his commercial interests were 
increasing and brought him into frequent colli- 




sions with another phase of the oyerbearing pol- 
icy of England. Her course with reference to 
the rights of American ships and seamen became 
more and more difificult to endure as the keels 
laid in her lost colonies multiplied upon every 
sea and tcx^k Irom her a lai'ger and larger share 
of the carrNino- trade of the world. 



24 MEN OF BUSINESS 

Mr. Astor's forecast was shrewdly manifested 
in another direction. New York had not yet, 
hy .sxx\y means, established her position as the 
greatest commercial centre of the New World. 
Other cities were proposing to rival or surpass 
her. Only a part of the lower end of Manhat- 
tan Island was as yet required for business pur- 
poses, and most men seemed to bclieye that the 
remainder might be occupied as villas and farms 
lor generations. Not so did Mr. Astor. What- 
ever capital could be spared from other opera- 
tions, he continually invested in real estate, a lit- 
tle outside, for the greater part, of the ideas of 
other buyers. Some, indeed, was for immediate 
improvement and he built upon it, but more be- 
k)nged to the city of the future which his pro- 
phetic eyes were looking at. In this as in other 
parts of his widening plans, there was no haste, 
nothing which he himself considered speculative, 
but only the onward march of a settled policy 
based upon his perceptions of the sure develop- 
ment of the town he lived in. It was a policy so 
clearly outlined and so firmly fixed that it be- 
came a recognized part of the inheritance which 
he at last handed over to his children. 

The merchant-statesman had fully developed 
his ideas concerning the new West, by the 3'ear 
1809, and he warmly urged them upon the gov- 
ernment of the United States. The old frontier, 
he said, must now be made thoroughly Ameri- 
can, and must be guarded h\ American forts and 
lake-cruisers, as far as the toot of Lake Michigan. 
I'loin that point, b\' a route ascertained b\' ac- 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR 25 

tiial survey, there should be a chain of posts, 
protecting traffic and immigration, all the way 
across the continent, to the mouth of the Colum- 
bia River. From thence an American line of 
ships should connect with Asia, one of the Sand- 
wich Islands being secured as a half-way station. 
He himself, at once and single-handed, set out to 
found the new seaport town at the mouth of the 
Columbia River. Read in the light of subse- 
quent achievements, Mr. Astor's project offers 
something like a measure of the luminous brain 
in which it was originated. So does the cour- 
age with which he undertook to carry it out, 
under the most discouraging circumstances. 
Long before the overland stages ran, or the rail- 
way and telegraph were thought of, the work 
they were to do had been laid out for them. 
The Pacific Mail steamships of to-day make pre- 
cisely the use of the Sandwich Islands that was 
assigned to them in Mr. Astor's Asiatic line, but 
they sail from a port which was not then Ameri- 
can. 

The " War of 1812 " broke rudely in upon the 
efforts, begun the previous year, to carry out the 
Columbia River scheme. It was a war in the 
direct line of Mr. Astor's entire policy, but com- 
pelled its temporary abandonment. It was also 
a war singularly marked by civil and military 
blunders, but which, nevertheless, accomplished 
the purposes for which it was begun. At the 
end of it, American ships and sailors were free, 
and the northern frontier was forever clear of 
encroachments, with the great lakes opened to 



26 



MEN OF BUSINESS 



the future of American commerce. While hos- 
tilities were still going on, the countrv suffered 
unduly. It was not yet of age, in years, it was 
very poor in purse, and it had very little credit. 
Mr. Astor, however, had entire faith in the secu- 
rities of the United States and invested in them 




heavily. The subsequent advance in price of all 
the purchases he made at war-time rates, mucli 
more than reimbursed him for his many losses 
occasioned by the war, in a kind of [)olitical 
financial justice. 

Aft(M- the i"etui"n ol jteace the Northwestern 
sc4ieme was not at once taken up again. It 



JOHX JACOB A ST OR 27 

could not be, without direct and liberal co-opera- 
tion by the national government, and some of its 
topographical and other difficulties were better 
understood than at an earlier da}-. Mr. Astor"s 
interest in Asiatic commerce continued, how- 
ever, and his commercial operations expanded 
after the war. The growth of New York City 
was already more than justifying his earlier pur- 
chases, and he was now reaching out yet further 
and was buying land which had been mere past- 
ure when he opened his first shop on Water 
Street. He was a builder as well as a buyer, 
with a very clear conception of the kind of 
structure required for immediate occupation in 
any given locality. 

As the first quarter of the nineteenth century 
drew to a close, Mr. Astor began to feel that his 
time for new enterprises and daring adventures 
had naturally passed away. While still main- 
taining a keen supervision of his affairs and di- 
recting all things with a steady hand and almost 
unerring business judgment, there were many 
things which could now be safely left to others. 
The very nature of his investments made them 
easier of administration. Without prejudice to 
any financial interest, therefore, more time could 
be given to books, to literary friends, and to a 
watchful study of the manner in which events 
were fulfilling the most extravagant dream of 
his youth. It was a rarely exceptional accom- 
plishment of a penniless boy's ambition, but 
there had been in it very little of the element 
which takes the name of chance or fortune. 



28 MEN OF BUSINESS 

There had been exhibited, on the other hand, 
great personal courage and endurance, accom- 
panied by long patience. It is not easy, now, to 
couple the idea of youthful dash and daring with 
even the earlier days of such a career as his, but 
it was there, in a degree only surpassed by- the 
sagacity and the known integrity which enabled 
him to deal equally well with red Iroquois, New 
York business men, or the mercantile houses 
of Europe and Asia. The result accomplished 
was led up to along plainly marked lines, by 
the working of distinctly readable forces. Espe- 
cially is it notable that the ever-present spirit of 
adventure, ready for taking risks, was at no time 
changed into the spirit of gambling, the feverish 
rashness which so often sacrifices the future to 
the present. 

Mr. Astor's benefactions were manv, but he 
said no more about them than about his other 
business affairs. Those that are known evince 
his characteristic of building thoughtfully upon 
matured plans. One of them was an asylum for 
poor children in his native village of Waldorf, 
which he endowed with $50,000. It was a kind 
of memorial of his own boyhood, given to the 
children poorer than himself with whose needs 
he had been acquainted. 

For the city to which he had been led, after 
leaving Waldorf, by way of London and Balti- 
more, Mr. Astor provided something altogether 
new. There were already public libraries, here 
and there, in America, better or worse, and none 
of them of a high order of merit. The literature 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR 29 

of the country was in its infancy, but it gave 
promise of fruitfulness. Americans might yet 
write readable books, some said, but Mr. Astor's 
habitual forecast began to deal with the needs of 
the men and women who were to write. There 
was. a long and careful study of the subject, and 
there were many consultations with eminent 
scholars and literary men, including near per- 
sonal friends like Irving and Halleck. The idea 
that grew was that of a library for literary work- 
ers especially, and for all readers incidentally. 
It should be a perpetual servant of American 
bookmaking, for even Mr, Astor could hardly 
have foreseen its usefulness to a periodical liter- 
ature yet to be created. It was, however, for a 
condition of things not yet existing, but clearly 
foreseen, that he invented the library bearing his 
name. 

The ver}^ locality selected for it was well up- 
town. It was among the dwellings of the rich, 
as became the dignity of its intended character, 
although these were before long to drift up the 
island, northward, like ships carried by an irre- 
sistible current. 

For the fulfilment of his well-matured library 
plan, Mr. Astor made a cash devise of $400,000. 
Of more than equal value was the fact that its 
future usefulness was made one of the inherited 
ideas of the Astor family, for another of the 
dreams of the Waldorf boy had been realized, 
and he had founded a " family." At his demise, 
March 29, 1848, his estate was estimated at a then 
present valuation of only twenty millions ; but its 



30 MEX OF BUSINESS 

nature was such that its future was inseparably 
bound up with that of the city. Its subsequent 
histor}- tallies closel}' with that of the country 
with whose birth it began, and whose first stages 
of growth Mr. Astor served so well, as a pioneer- 
merchant-statesman. In studying the record of 
his career it becomes easier to separate the idea 
of statesmanship from that of oflfice-holding, and 
to perceive that some of the greatest, most far- 
reaching public services may be all the while per- 
formed by lives which have apparently been given 
to the accomplishment of success in business. 



II. 

CORNELIUS VANDERBILT. 

The ancient idea that war is the normal con- 
dition of the human race has been put away only 
so far as the relations of states and nations are 
concerned. These indeed are content, in this 
latter day, to maintain an attitude of armed peace 
which is itself an exceedingly costly warfare, 
consuming vast armies in fortified camps with- 
out sending them into actual battle. In other 
departments of human activity there is perpetual 
conflict. Business men of all occupations still 
speak of the season before them as '' the cam- 
paign." In it they expect to meet with com- 
petition, and with the chances and changes of 
production, consumption, and finance, as with en- 
emies in the field. The gathering and use of 
varied forces, the strategies of attack and de- 
fence employed, are often in striking correspond- 
ence with processes involved in the movements 
of armies. The larger and the more carefully 
studied may be the operations, the stronger ap- 
pears the military likeness. At the close of each 
campaign, moreover, with its consequences of 
victory or defeat, there is apt to be a militarv 
illustration of the related doctrine of " the sur- 
vival of the fittest." 



32 MEN OF BUSINESS 

During; many years, a period which might be 
measured by one long business life, there was a 
little group of men in New York City whose 
membership attracted the eyes of the nation 
somewhat as did its statesmen and its generals. 
It was generally understood that they were con- 
stantly engaged in a warlike rivalry which fre- 
quently brought them into collisions, into trials 
of strength and skill, in the results of which large 
numbers of their fellow-citizens, if not all, had at 
least an indirect pecuniar}' interest. Whatever 
might be said of any of them, as speculators, 
financiers, money-kings, or the like, the}' and 
their ways were so discussed from day to day 
that other men became familiar with them, with 
even their faces and their dress and their habits 
of speech, almost as if they wxre personal ac- 
quaintances. 

Towering among them, like Saul above his 
brethren, the most dramatic figure of them all, 
but without knowing it, was one tall, broad-shoul- 
dered, muscular form, which remained upon the 
field of battle after most of the others had passed 
awav. In fact, it still remains, and cannot even yet 
pass out of the minds of men ; for Cornelius Van- 
derbiltwas in many respects the most remarkable 
man of business yet developed in the long, stormy 
fermentations of American business affairs. 

He was born near Stapleton, Staten Island, 
N. Y., May 27, 1794, and was descended from 
Jan Aertsen Van der Bilt, a Dutch immigrant 
who came over from Holland about the year 
1650, and settled upon a farm near Brooklyn. 




Cornelius Vanderbilt. 



34 MEN OF BUSINESS 

Something like sixty-five years later, or in 1715, 
his grandson, the great-grandfather of Cornelius 
Vanderbilt, went over to Staten Island and be- 
came the owner of a farm near New Dorp. 
Here he became converted to the doctrines of 
the Moravians, which continued to infiuence the 
religious ideas of the family during several gen- 
erations. 

The type of character introduced by the early 
Dutch colonists and developed under American 
conditions has presented marked differences from 
its near neighbor and rival, or fellow-citizen, the 
New England Puritan stock. It has, however, 
in equal degree, the enterprise, the love of ad- 
venture, the fearlessness, the sturdy personal in- 
dependence ; for these were inherited from the 
heroic people who made the great history of the 
Dutch Republic. 

The father of Cornelius was a farmer in mod- 
erate circumstances, but might have given his son 
something like an early, common-school educa- 
tion, if he would have taken it. He learned to 
read and write, whether he would or not, but 
that was the end of his consent to have anything 
to do with books. Arithmetic, in all its practical 
applications, came to him naturally ; and as for 
geography, any map he cared to examine was 
transferred to his memorv as if it belonged to the 
ins and outs of New York Bay or the Sound. 
He was hardly more than a child when he began 
his searching acquaintanceship with all of those 
coast-lines that he could get an opportunity of 
visiting. 



CORNELIUS TANDERBILT 35 

It was, after all, a wholesome life for a boy to 
lead, with its boating- and fishing adventures and 
its increasing knowledge of land and sea. The 
Staten Island farmers and their neighbors, like 
all islanders, were necessarily a semi-maritime 
people. Among them and those who from time 
to time drifted ashore, were old seafaring men, 
full of strange 3\arns and also full of varied funds 
of nautical information. It was a preparatory 
school, after all, for a boy who was yet to have 
so much to do with ships and shipping. His 
next lesson in life was one which at once gave 
him his bent and introduced him to the career in 
which his distinguishing work was to be per- 
formed. He was a handsome boy, tall and strong 
beyond his years, of a steady and resolute, but 
sometimes pugnacious temper, and with keen, 
restless dark eyes, which seemed to miss nothing 
between them and the horizon. 

His father sent the produce of his farm, with 
some from other farms, to New York Cit}', in a 
sail-boat of his own. It was a stout craft, built 
for safety rather than speed, for the waves of the 
Bav were sometimes rough sailing, but before 
long Cornelius proved himself so good a sailor 
that he was trusted to go and come by himself. 
He was the captain and often the entire crew of 
a vessel which carried freight, but was also will- 
ing to conve}- passengers. The produce carried 
was generally to be delivered for sale to market 
consignees, but there were exceptions, and occa- 
sions for the exercise of judgment. It was a 
business with " points " of its own to be studied 



36 MEN OF BUSINESS 

and perceived, and the Staten Island boy shortly 
obtained a thorough comprehension of his mar- 
ket, with its ups and downs, its over-sales, its 
scarcities, and its artificial " corners." He made 
ventures of his own, before long, and his opera- 
tions were conducted so well that at the age 
of sixteen he became a ship-owner, that is, he 
bought and owned a better sail-boat than his 
father's. It carried freight as well, but it had 
more room for passengers, and these were in- 
creasing in number as the 3'ears went by. There 
was money in the business, and he prospered, 
growing taller and stronger while he did so. At 
eighteen, he not only owned two good boats, 
handled for him by hired crews, but was captain 
of a third and larger boat, commodore of a little 
line that made quite a figure in the trade and 
transportation of Staten Island. Here he kept 
his office and headquarters at the old farm-house, 
during one year more, but he was studying more 
extended enterprises. At nineteen, he married 
his cousin, Sophia Johnson, and moved to New 
York City, where he transacted business and 
made and kept his contracts with small reference 
to the fact that he was not yet of age. 

Immediately the strong, deep mark of his busi- 
ness genius manifested itself. It seemed as if 
every line of water transit between New York 
and other ports, small or great, was already held, 
and some were apparently more than supplied, 
but young Vanderbilt had noted deficiencies. 
He began to plan for both traffic and freight be- 
tween the city and several towns along the Hud- 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT 



37 



son River and Long- Island Sonnd. The days of 
steam were at hand, bnt had n(jt arrived, and he 
planned and had bnilt, aceording to his several 
reqnirements, boats, sloops, and schooners, upon 
the best and latest models for speed, capacity, 




One of the Early Steamboats. 

and comforto He met with both encouraging 
successes and speculative losses. Nothing like 
wealth seemed to promise as yet, and before long 
there were greater and greater encroachments 
made by steam vessels upon the old time craft and 
their business. That, too, was a change for which 
he was getting ready, and he was only twenty- 
three years of age when he became captain of a 



3S MEN OF BUSIWESS 

steamer running as a freight and passenger ferry, 
boat between New York and New Brunswick, 
N. J. During the twelve years that followed he 
was nominall}^ at work upon a salary, but was all 
the while getting ahead, mentally and pecuniar- 
ily. He was able, therefore, in 1827, at the age 
of thirty-three, to lease on his own account the 
ferry between Ncav York and Elizabeth, N. J. It 
was a promising line, but he at once made its 
promise of greater value by building new and 
improved boats for it. So well was his forecast 
verified by cash results that two years later, in 
1829, he was ready to contract for new and larger 
craft with which to compete for the rich trans- 
port harvest of the Hudson River. There was 
but one road to victor}-, for his competitors were 
wide-awake men. It was necessary to offer the 
public something better than others gave them, 
and he did so, zealously hunting out every dis- 
coverable improvement in hulls, machinerv, or 
outfit. Moreover, he was personall}- acquainted 
with the entire boating community, and knew 
how to select men for their work. The very prin- 
ciple upon which he was managing led him to 
make continual improvements in the human force 
in charge of his fleet. He was remorseless in dis- 
pensing with defective subordinates, continually, 
as if they were so many boats, replacing those 
who were unsatisfactory with something better 
adapted to the business in hand. 

There were few millionaires in the United 
States in the 3'ear 1836. It was a time, too, of 
wide-spread financial distress, and business men 



COliXELIUS VANDERBILT 39 

generally were losing money, rather than mak- 
ing any. All the more prominence, therefore, 
was given to a man who had acquired the fleet 
captain's title of Commodore, and was loosely 
estimated to be worth $500,000. This was prob- 
ably much too high an estimate, and nearly the 
whole Sinn, larger or smaller, was invested in 
property wdiich required constant activity to 
maintain its value. It was not large enough to 
enable its owner to maintain a war, campaign 
after campaign, over too broad a field, in oppo- 
sition to powerful and capable antagonists. The 
Hudson River interest was therefore parted with 
to Robert L. Stevens, the Commodore restricting 
himself, for a time, to Long Island Sound and its 
growing recjuirements. The commerce of this 
great water-way had not yet been materially in- 
terfered with by railway competition, but any- 
thing like a mastery of it called for a further 
application of the fundamental principle of im- 
provement, the best boats handled by the best 
men. If again and again weaker rivals were 
crushed by a persistent system of lower rates 
and better accommodations, the methods of the 
campaigns in which they were beaten were not 
injurious to the public interest. 

The Commodore was now in a kind of general 
|)artnership with im])()rtant concerns engaged in 
ship-building. Acting indejiendenth', ol course, 
they vmderstood and were prejiared to meet his 
increasing requirements. U^hen, therefore, in 
1S49, the California gold excitement broke out, 
with its sudden flood of feverish migration, he 



40 



MEN OF BUSINESS 



was better ready than other men to seize the op- 
portunity. He promptly placed steamers upon 
the Nicaragua route to San Francisco, and began 
to gather a golden harvest before any large 
amounts had returned from the placers. Four 
years later, in 1853, he sold out this part of his 




undertakings, upon what seemed peculiarly ad- 
vantageous terms. He had toiled long, had ac- 
cumulated wealth, and had determined upon 
enjoying a vacation. For this he had planned in 
a manner that was altogether his own. There 
were steam yachts, although not manv, both in 
America and Europe, but he liad built for him- 
self, upon general designs of his own making, a 
vessel which he named the North Star. In her 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT 41 

construction, tonnage, and appointments, she sur- 
passed any other steam yacht then in existence, 
and he sailed in her to the Old World, with his 
family and a chosen party of friends. It was a 
long pleasure cruise, during which he touched 
at many ports, and everywhere attracted and 
received marked attention. There were great 
ship-owning houses and corporations, the world 
over, but no other individual was "Commodore" 
of so large a fleet, owned and directed by himself. 
He was a kind of prince in the realm of sea-going 
transportation, and he was treated accordingly. 

If this was to be regarded as the celebration 
of a business triumph, he returned to America to 
find a new war upon his hands, and he entered 
into it with vigor. The parties to whom he had 
sold the Nicaragua line were disputing the con- 
ditions of their bargain and were trying to evade 
its payments. It is possible that in the courts, 
or if he had been less of a fighting man, or with 
Aveaker resources, they might have succeeded. 
They might, at least, have obtained compro- 
mises. As it was, they found him at once re-en- 
tering the field as their competitor, and with a 
vastly better mastery of all the elements of that 
species of campaign. After a sharp, pitiless 
struggle, they were forced into bankruptcv and 
the victor retained possession of the field of bat- 
tle. It was a prize worth contending for. Dur- 
ing the eleven years that followed, his profits 
amounted to $i 1,000,000. He was not the richest 
man in America, but he stood among the fore- 
most half dozen. 



42 MEX OF BUSrXESS 

During a part of this period, a large share of 
the Commodore's energetic work was turned in 
another direction. England was then, although 
to a less extent than now, the mistress of the 
ocean-carrying business. The United States 
stood very near her — next in rank — but mainlv 
with wooden sailing vessels. Onlv one impor- 
tant line of American steamers, the Collins, ran 
upon the Atlantic ferrv. There had been signs 
of an approaching collision between England and 
Russia, and it was plainlv to be foreseen that 
such an event would offer an American oppor- 
tunitv bv a partial crippling of the English mer- 
chant marine. That France also was involved 
increased the probable opening, and the Com- 
modore prepared to take advantage of it. His 
idea was a long campaign for the carrving trade 
between Europe and America, and he began it 
with the outbreak of the Crimean War, in 1853. 
Using whatever other ships he owned or could 
obtain, he built three new ones, the best and the 
swiftest, and established them as a line between 
New York and Havre. The Crimean War was 
ended in 1856, and before that time the English 
ship interest had more than recovered from its 
temporarv disabilitv. It was once more exceed- 
inglv ditftcult for anv American line to maintain 
what was, for manv reasons, an unequal contest. 
A mistake of generalship on the part of the Com- 
modore himself, made it imptissible. All great 
leaders make mistakes, and even the Commodore 
hastilv overlooked the fact that to weaken any 
American line or the iiencral resources of such 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT 43 

lines, was to strengthen the common enemy. 
The great English steamship interest was well 
known to be aided by Government subsidies, in 
one form or another, in addition to their many 
other advantages. The Collins line was main- 
tained against them, narrowly, by its United 
States mail contracts. It was a fatal blow when 
the Vanderbilt ships proposed to carry the mails 
for nothing. The payment ceased ; the Collins 
steamers shortly were withdrawn ; the Commo- 
dore was left alone in the field. If he had won an 
apparent victorv over an American rival, how- 
ever, he had enabled his European opponents to 
concentrate against him, and they forced him to 
give up the fight. 

Long before this, however, Mr. Vanderbilt's 
genius for transportation had led him to the care- 
ful study of another of the most obvious signs 
of the times. His own account books, and the 
reports of other steamboat men, told him how 
the railways were taking away the carrying busi- 
ness of the Hudson and the Sound. The latter 
was of less importance, but the rails parallel 
with the river reached on, westward, as far as 
the future of the country might build tracks for 
them, or provide freight and passengers. Nev- 
ertheless, these lines of transportation had been 
so managed that their record had been largely 
one of losses, and the prices of their stocks ruled 
low. As earlv as 1844, Mr. Vanderbilt began to 
buv shares of the New York and New llaven, 
then at a low figure, but he did so quietlv, with- 
out attractiuir attention. It was not until the 



44: MEX OF BUSiySSS 

close of the Crimean War, in 1856, that he was 
known to be drawing out from the steamboat 
lines on the Sound. In very nearly the same 
manner, if not quite so early, he acquired and 
steadily increased an interest in the New York 
and Harlem road, the shares of wdiich were 
almost despised and neglected on the Exchange. 
He was biding his time and setting his capital 
free ; but too much of it was vet invested in ships 
and steamers, and their management could not be 
neglected without disastrous losses. 

It looked as if these had come to him, as to 
other American ship-owners, with the outbreak of 
the Civil War, in 1861. The commercial marine 
of the United States was indeed soon swept from 
the sea, and the carrying trade of the world 
passed into other hands altogether. At once, 
however, there was a war demand for such craft 
as could be fitted up as light cruisers, or could 
serve as transports for troops and army supplies. 
It does not appear that the Commodore at once 
availed himself of this market for vessels to any 
extent, but the spring of 1862 brought him an 
exceptional opportunitv. The Monitor and the 
Merrimac fought their historic battle, in Hamp- 
ton Roads, changing in a dav the navies and 
naval warfare of the world. With the first news 
of the appearance of the Merrimac, however, and 
of the destruction of the United States wooden 
war-vessels, the patriotism of the Commodore 
took fire. His best steamshiu was the Vandcibilt, 
the swiftest, strongest, best appointed siiip alloat, 
as he believed. Siie could, at least, ruu down the 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT 



45 



Merrimac, armored or unarmored, even if both 
ships went to the bottom together. The experi- 
ment was never to be tried, although thenceforth 
the " ram " recovered its old Roman place in 
naval combats; bnt the Vanderbilt was made a 
present to the United States and performed other 
services of vast value. At the close of the war, 
in 1866, the patriotic giver received from Con- 
gress a vote of thanks and a gold medal, in 




The Vanderbilt. 



cordial recognition of his timelv gift. It had 
indeed stimulated all other support of the na- 
tional cause, and had strengthened the Govern- 
ment in its hour of need. There was afterward 
no expression of jealousv when it became gen- 
erallv understood that subsequent disposal of all 
his other available craft, bv sale or charter, to the 
Government, had enabled Mr. Vanderbilt to per- 
manentlv withdraw his capital from the water, 
with large jn'ohts, that he might reinvest it in rails 
and rolling stock. Onlv a vear later, in 1863, he 
had upon his hands his first important railway 



46 ^fEX OF BUSINESS 

and Stock Exchange campaign, and he fought it 
out, through what seemed inevitable defeat, to a 
victory which opened the way to a long series of 
brilliant successes. 

Owing to long-continued mismanagement and 
other causes, the stock of the Harlem Railroad 
was selling, in 1863, at only $10 a share. It 
was therefore easy for a man with millions of 
released capital to buy a controlling interest, 
but there were those who wondered what he 
could do with it, even as a Wall-Street shuttle- 
cock. His lifelong policy, or principle, of de- 
velopment and improvement was not understood 
bv mere speculators. Neither were they aware 
how silently and rapidly he was buying shares 
of the Hudson River road, in the neighbor- 
hood of $75 per share. His first movement 
was to obtain a charter for a system of New 
York City street railways, connecting with the 
road, including a line traversing Broadway. Up 
went the stock to par, and for a little while 
the enterprise looked well; but daring and skil- 
ful foes were preparing something very much 
resembling a night attack. Prominent Wall- 
Street operators entered into combination with 
controlling politicians and sold the stock short, 
or for future deliverv, while the city government 
prepared to rescind the Broad wav part of the 
new franchise, considered its greatest value. 

The stock went down, down again. The 
franchise was reduced to narrower limits, and 
still the operators sold and sold, to push their 
supposed victim lower. What they did not 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT 47 

know was the fact that the opposing general 
was quite willing to risk his resources and was 
buying all they offered. lie went on until the 
entire stock of the road was in his hands, 
and men who had contracts out for its deliv- 
ery must buy of him. That their settlements 
were made, as it was said, " at two prices," 
was a matter of course, but the plans of the 
victor included a permanent increase of actual 
value as well as of selling price. His purchases 
had now given him control of the Hudson River 
road also, and he at once sent into the State 
Legislature a bill providing for the union of the 
two franchises. Here he was again confranted 
by the financial political clique of stock operators, 
led by some of the most acute and able men 
on the Street or at Albany. The stock had risen 
to one hundred and fifty when they began to 
"bear" it. Down it went, and they seemed to 
be making money and beating their too venture- 
some adversary all the way, until its price w^as 
lower than that at which he at the first began to 
purchase. He and his friends, however, were 
obligingly accepting all offers, until the out- 
standing short contracts covered twenty-seven 
thousand more shares than had ever been issued. 
There was a hot day on the Street when this fact 
came to light. It was even necessary for the Com- 
modore, in order to avert a general panic, to 
settle with the associated "shorts" at an average 
price of $285 per share. His profits were enor- 
mous. The two roads were made one, and instant- 
ly began a searching reformation in every part 



48 MF:^'■ OF BFSII^ESS 

and (k'partiiu'ut ol their niana^-cinciit. Mr. Van- 
derbilt assumed the presidency of the new cor- 
poration, with a nominal board of directors, 
who directed very much as if thev had been the 
mates and crew of one of his old-time coasting 
vessels. Perhaps no other feature occasioned 
more surprise, from time to time, than did the 
minuteness of his knowledge of all the items of 
a railway construction account, and his determi- 
nation to use onlv the verv best ap}iliances, of 
every kind. Allied to this was his rigid demand 
lor discipline, fidelitv, and etficiencv in all the 
human part of his transportation service. In so 
doing he was rendering a vast and permanent 
public service, for it was a revolution which 
rapidly extended to all other American railwavs. 
Mr. Vanderbilt's first purchases of New York 
Central stock had attracted no special attention, 
but his successive graspings of the river lines 
sent a spasm of alarm through the circle of finan- 
ciers then in control of the railroads from Al- 
bany to Buffalo. They had held that impor- 
tant interest long, believed themselves firmlv 
seated, but they dreaded the swift advances 
of this new railwav king. He was a danger- 
ous enemy to other kings, and thev made the 
serious mistake of beginning a war upon him. 
They were not overwise, for thev overlooked 
the ice-bound condition of the Hudson during all 
the winter months, when thev made their ar- 
rangements to send down their heavv freights 
and as manv as possible of their passengers to 
New York bv water instead of bv rail. It was 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT 4i) 

a war in which both shippers and traxcUers prof- 
ited, and the roads did nt)t, but it only lasted a 
year or so. The Commodore's new moyement 
was ready \yith the winter of 1865. His friends 
and ailments on tiie street were heayily short of 
New York Central stock, and the riyer was closed 
with ice, when he suddenly transferred the Al- 
bany terminns of the riyer roads across to the 
eastern shore, and refused to receiye freight from 
the Central. Down went the market price of its 
shares, and the Vanderbilt interest not only prof- 
itably covered its shorts, but took also all the 
stock that was offered by the surprised and all 
but panicky holders. At the end of this cam- 
paign there was an assurance of peace in the fut- 
ure, for the winner controlled the rails from New 
York to Buffalo, and was arranging for another 
consolidation. In 1869 he was elected President 
of the New York Central & Hudson River Rail- 
road Co. He had already been President of 
the Central since 1867, however, and there had 
really been but one road and one head, with a 
drastic process of reoi^ganization, reform, recon- 
struction, and deeply searching improvement go- 
ing on from hour to hour. 

The reorganization of the financial structure 
of the consolidated roads involved an important 
feature which was then and afterward the sub- 
ject of severe criticism. Mr. Vanderbilt de- 
clared that the existing stock did not fairly i-ep- 
resent the property. Additional stock was there- 
fore issued to holders, at the rate of one hundred 
and seven per cent, nominal shares to outstand- 
4 



50 MEN OF BUSINESS 

incr shares of Central, and eii^lit v-nine per cent, 
lo shares of the Hudson River. In si)ite of this 
watering- process the price arose to two hundred, 
so great was the g-eneral confidence in the new 
management, and so thoroughh was any exist- 
ing " bear " interest defeated. 

While the improvement in the roads under 
Mr. Vanderbilt's control was altogether phe- 
nominal ; while tracks, bridges. de}K)ts, cars, and 
lateral connections changed their character as if 
bv magic, the Commander-in-Chief, now. rather 
than the Commodore, was leading his financial 
forces westward. Bv obtaining control of the 
Lake Slun-e. Canada Southern, and Michigan 
Central, he completed his relations with the com- 
merce of the great lakes and reached Chicago. 
From this centre of freight and trade he jnished 
on. tner road after road, into the west and north- 
west ctnmtrv, and formed connections across the 
continent to the Pacific. Almost every succes- 
sive step involved a contest, more or less severe, 
but he met with no more perplexing adversaries 
than those with whom he contended, at the very 
outset, in a campaign aimed against the then 
competing management ot the Erie, or "New 
York. Lake Erie c^ Western" Railwav. The 
leaders upon the (.")pposite side were Daniel Drew, 
Jav Gmdd, James Fiske. and other well-known 
powers of the Street, and the contest passed 
through a swift successitMi of exciting, drama- 
tic, often grotesque and even repulsive phases. 
Never befoi^e or since has it been equalled in the 
annals of American " stock operations." and its 



CORNELIUS VANDERBILT 51 

details were bv no means pleasant reading, for 
courts of law were made to figure as mere chess- 
men in the hands ol skilful players. If all things 
are fair in war, upt)n that and no other ground 
could much that was done be justified. If, how- 
ever, the Commodore was at one time beaten, 
with a loss of $7,000,000, bv means of a fraudulent 
over-issue of Erie shares, he afterward justly 
recovered nearly $5,000,000 of it, after a contest 
in the courts. His real success, however, con- 
sisted in the final result that his own great rail- 
way system was left without an important rival 
nearer than the more southerly east-and-west 
trunk lines. With these it was afterward to 
enter into a number of brief, spasmodic competi- 
tions for the business of the West, but there was 
to be no campaign worthy of record as throwing 
further light upon his own genius. 

It has been said of him that he was not and 
could not have been a pioneer ; that he never 
projected or opened a new line or channel. If 
this should be accepted as measurably true, it 
should be read in connection with his leading 
characteristic as a business man, that of perceiv- 
ing at a glance whatever could be done to de- 
velop any existing channel to its utmost capacity, 
with reference to all the future effects or conse- 
quences of that development. The roads that he 
perfected and the rates of carrying as he reduced 
them, may be said to have made some of our 
new States possible. The rapidity of their settle- 
ment and prosperity could not otherwise have 
been attained. 



52 MEX OF nUSINESS 

The loiii;- waiiarr ol Mr. \'aiulcrhilt's busi- 
ness life grew somcw hat less active toward the 
close, but it C(nild iu)t altogether cease until the 
very end. This came, in Xew York Cit_y, Janu- 
ary 4. 1877. His estate was estimated at about 
one hundred millions of dollars. With the ex- 
ception ot a million previouslv given to \'ander- 
bilt I'niversity. at Nashville. Tenn.. antl $50,000 
to the Church oi the Strangers in New York, it 
went to his children, the larger part going to his 
son. William H. \'anderbilt. into wht^se hands 
the business management had alreadv passed. 

A much greater inheritance remained, divided 
among all men. in the work he had performed 
lor the transportation business of the United 
States. He went into it in its ver.v infancv. grew 
with it, and its present advanced condition owes 
more to him than to any other man. He builded 
well through all the sharp campaigns of his war- 
like business life. He left behind him a broad Iv 
written record u\Mm the face of the huul, in stcnie 
and steel and iron. No other American business 
man can be given a higher rank as one of the 
builders of the prosperity of the ciMumon wealth. 




Charles Louis Tiftany. 



III. 

CHARLES LOUIS TIFFANY. 

There yet lingers, in the minds of many men, 
a remnant of the old, semi-barbaric idea that 
there is a natural separation between the fine 
arts and good business management. A better 
understanding grows more and more into gen- 
eral acceptance, but art and good taste are not 
intelligently studied as important servants of 
success, except within the limits of a few pecul- 
iarly developed lines of business. Their possible 
application has hardly any limit. If it were 
made, as it eventually must be, a wide range of 
occupations would become vastly useful also as 
educational and refining processes. 

It is true that the more obvious uses of color, 
order, arrangement, for effect in attracting the 
eyes of retail purchasers, are by no means neg- 
lected, but they are sought for with an exceed- 
ingly defective perception of their nature and 
value. It is also true that the general public 
taste has advanced, attaining a better but still 
very dim idea of the distinction between orna- 
mentation and bedizenment. The better culture 
may well be acknowledged in full. Both its 
growth and its importance may hnd instructive 



54 MEX OF BUSINESS 

illustrations from the record of the business men 
to whose successful careers the improvement 
attaches. 

The field of art culture is wide, and the part of 
it under consideration owes less than might be 
imagined to the utterances or writings, or even 
to the art-achievements of men who have earned 
fame as masters and i)rofessional instructors. 
More has been done hir the general forward 
movement bv men who have obtained practical 
business successes bv taking good taste and 
sound art-principles as partners in the councils 
of their counting-rooms. 

Charles Louis Tiffany was born at Killinglv, 
Conn., Februarv 15, 1812. The family, of Eng- 
lish origin, were among the earlv settlers of New 
England, for his great-grandfather was a native 
of Massachusetts. His father, Comfort Tiffanv, 
was born and brought up at Attleboro, Mass., 
and, shortly after marrving Miss Chloe Draper, 
of that place, removed to Danielsonville, Wind- 
ham Countv, Conn., to engage in the manufact- 
VI re of cotton goods. 

There was a note worth v reason for such an 
adventure, for the war of 1812. with England, 
shutting off importation, gave the first impor- 
tant opportunitv and stimulus to the manufacture 
of cotton goods in America. During a series of 
vears there was a pretty rigid protection from 
foreign rivalrv, and the new industrv began to 
get ui>on its feet, although it still had long to 
wait for its L^ettei" machinerv, or even h)r ample 
su})plies ot raw material irom the slowl\- oj)ening 



GHARLKS LOUIS TIFFANY 55 

cotton-fields of the Scnith. Comfort Tiffaii}- had 
many obstacles to contend with as a pioneer in 
a new industry, and some of these were of a 
commercial nature, coming with the return of 
peace and competition. His eldest son, Charles, 
was therefore born into a species of technical 
school, and grew up through a course of inci- 
dental instruction in all that was then known of 
the art-business of adopting or devising patterns, 
varying or improving fabrics, or providing in 
advance for anticipated or supposable changes 
in the popular taste and demand. 

There were other schools at and near Kill- 
ingly, and Charles received his primary educa- 
tion in " the little red school-house " at Daniel- 
sonville, a typical New England district school. 
He afterward spent two years at the Plainfield 
Academy, about ten miles from his own home. 
This was at that time a somewhat noted schocjl, 
presided over by John Witter, a Yale College 
graduate and tutor. While young Tiffany was 
at Plainfield his father organized a company, 
called the Brooklyn Manufacturing Company, for 
larger manufacturing operations. They bought 
half of the water privilege on the Brooklyn 
side of the Ouinnebaug River, opposite Daniel- 
sonville. While their new mill was building, 
Comfort Tiffany opened a little country store, 
took his son Charles out of school and put him 
in charge of it. The young merchant was but 
fifteen years old, but then his store was also very 
small and young. He kept the accounts of the 
business, and after it became j)retty firml}- estab- 



56 MEN OF BUSINESS 

lished he made a number of trips to New York 
for merchandise. 

About a year after the new mill was opened 
Mr. Tiffany removed his residence to the Brook- 
lyn side of the river. At the same time he bought 
out his associates, and the cotton-goods manu- 
facturing went on under the firm name of C. 
Tiffany cS: Son. The country-store business had 
developed so well that a larger place was ob- 
tained for it, and the management of it was 
given to other hands, so that Charles L. Tif- 
fany could take up his books again. Several 
terms at the Brooklyn Academy completed this 
part of his education. Leaving school behind 
him at last, he went into his father's cotton 
factory as a student of business methods under 
a shrewd and capable instructor. He even 
cc^mpleted his course, so to speak, and was 
graduated into the factory business ; but its ap- 
parent prospects were not tempting. The days 
of cotton-mill prosperity were at hand, but they 
had not come, and young Tiffanv, at the age of 
twentv-hve. decided to go out from home in 
scarcli of something better adapted to the pecul- 
iar faculties he believed himself to possess. He 
had worked hard, and his habits had been all that 
could be asked for, but the pay had been only 
too moderate, without a possibility for accumu- 
lation, and he had no capital of his own. His 
former school-fellow antl firm frientl, John B. 
Young, was in the same conditit)n, financially, 
but he had gone out six months earlier, and was 
now. in 1837, employed in a stationery and fancy- 



CHARLES LOUIS TIFFANY 



57 



i^-oods store in New York C'itv. Here he was 
joined by Tiffany in the early summer, and to- 
g-ether they made a thorough study of the busi- 
ness possibilities. 




Mr. Tiffany when Twenty-eight Years of Age. 

To the eyes of most men, there hardly seemed 
to be any, for it was a dull, dead time, when 
commerce, trade, and manufactures were pros- 
trated by the sweeping financial hurricane of 
the great Panic of '^.y. Perhaps it was not so bad 
a tune tor a beginner, after all, considerini-- what 



58 



MEN OF BUSIXESS 



an immense number of the older concerns had 
suddenly disappeared. They were at the very 
bottom of the hill, but Mr. Young believed he 
knew something of the line he had served in for 
half a year, and Mr. Tiffanv had ideas of his own. 
Mr. Comfort Tiffanv approved of his son's un- 
dertaking, and loaned the voung adventurers five 




The Store Opposite City Hall, 

hundred dollars each. Upon this capital thev 
launched the firm of Tiffanv c^ Young, after 
painfully searching for and finding a salesroom 
over which thev could put up their modest sign. 
They coidd not think of going down town among 
the costlier buildings around what was then 
the centre of trade, near Trinitv Church, and vet 
they were criticized as rash in establishing them- 
selves so far up Broad wav as Xo. J59. opposite 
the middle of Citv Hall Park. Mr. Tiffanv was 



CHARLES LOUIS TIFFANY 59 

much encouraged in making his selection by the 
fact that a young dry-goods merchant named 
Alexander T. Stewart, who had opened an estab- 
lishment two doors above, was known to be doinsf 
very well. In after years he continued to have 
great confidence in that man's capacity as a 
salesman. The building obtained was one-half 
of a respectable double dwelling-house. Each 
front was fifteen feet in width, and the half be- 
tween them and Stewart's was occupied by a 
fashionable dressmaker named Scheltema. The 
rent was moderate, and the front room, once a 
parlor, but now altered to suit their purposes, 
was large enough to display the stock of station- 
ery and fancy goods provided by their slender 
capital. They were not yet ambitious enough to 
think of jewelry, but presented an array of Chi- 
nese pottery and other goods, Japanese lacquer 
work, terra-cotta wares, umbrellas, walking-sticks, 
cabinets, fans, leather work, bric-a-brac, station- 
ery, and miscellaneous " notions." It was some- 
thing new and out of any beaten track with 
which the city shoppers were then familiar, but 
that was bv no means the special attraction of 
the place. Its charm was that whatever it con- 
tained was so well presented. The very show 
of goods was a work of art, and everv selection 
had been made with good taste and good judg- 
ment. There could not be a grand opening, 
largely advertized, but on the i.Sth of September, 
1837, the little shop was readv for customers. 
Hardly anv came, and three days went bv with 
an aggregate of sales amounting to only $4.98. 



00 MEX OF BUSiyESS 

Ouc (lav more added '^2.". but tluise who came 
in to make these pettv purchases went away to 
tell what a prettv place they had seen, and others 
:dst) came to see. The good taste, with some- 
thing allied to it in the manner ot meeting cus- 
tomers, operated remarkably. Lower Broadway 
was then the fashionable promenade of a pleasant 
autumn dav, and shoppers on their way to the 
great establishments below the Park were almost 
sure to glance at a show window so hlled that it 
was a kind of picture. Sales increased, and with 
the growth of business it was easy to obtain con- 
signments of various kinds, including works of 
art, which greatlv aided the desired eflfect of 
making all things work together as an invitation 
for people with purses to come in. A few weeks 
later, the cash-book began to look encourag- 
ing, for on the dav before Christmas the sales 
amounted to S-S^^- ^ii<^ then, after a busy holiday- 
week, the dav before New Year's Day brought 
in S675. The latter was then "gift day," as 
Christmas is now. 

After that, success seemed to be assured and 
the character and quantity of the stock present- 
ed for sale improved continually. Mr. Tiffany's 
constant effort, studied from hour to hour, was 
to obtain and offer the very best that he could 
obtain with the means at his disposal. There 
was a constant watch and search of the import- 
ing houses for whatever would serve to increase 
the growing reputation of the young concern, 
refusing anything which did not seem to agree 
with the intended tone and effect, even if promis- 



CIT MILES LOriS TIF FA XT 01 

ing temporary profits. As for things acceptable, 
almost any maniifacturei- oi" importer was now- 
willing to place wares in so popular a salesroom. 
How^ great was the success actually gained may 
be fairly measured by the first misfortune that 
befell the house of Tiffany & Young. On the 
morning of January i, 1840, thieves broke in and 
stole almost everything that could be carried 
away, to the amount of about $4,000, four times 
the original capital ; but all the holida)' sales had 
been alread}- made and the young merchants had 
carried their cash home with them. They were 
therefore the better able to start well with the new 
year, and before the end of it their growing busi- 
ness required them to take in the next building, 
Mr. Stewart having removed, and they now had 
a frontage of forty-five feet on Broadway, with a 
show window on Warren Street. Once more, 
under the unerring eye of Mr. Tiffany, an effort 
at "art effect" was made, with the aid of Bohe- 
mian glassware, French and Dresden porcelain, 
cutlery, and clocks. Nothing worth mentioning 
had as yet been done in jewelry, but an enter- 
prise in that direction was under discussion. It 
was not to be undertaken, in the ordinary hum- 
drum way, making the concern only one more 
rival of the seemingly sufficient number which 
were already attending to the jewelry business. 

The firm itself was reorganized by the admis- 
sion of another partner, Mr. J. L. Ellis, the new^ 
firm-name being Tiffany, Young cSl Ellis, each 
member having his own specialty and responsi- 
bility. The next step ^vas a very long one for a 



02 ^^EX OF nrsiyEss 

house ncit lour years old. The manufactures 
ol the United States were still in their infancy. 
In many lines there \yas hardly an effort to com- 
pete \yith imported \yares. The greater part 
of the goods dealt in by Tiffany & Young had 
been brought to this country without any oppor- 
tunity giyen them for the exercise of taste or 
judgment in deciding beforehand what should 
come. They were confident that they knew 
better than other men the requirements of their 
increasing clientage of customers. At the same 
time they had only a defectiye knowledge of. and 
no direct relation with, the manufactories and 
salesrooms of Europe. It was therefore decided 
that Mr. Young sht)uld be sent to Europe upon 
a general exploring tour, with the intention of 
enabling the house to do thenceforth, as much 
as possible, its own importing. He was especially 
to search for noyelties, and proyide the Tiffany 
art warerooms with articles not to be obtained 
elsewhere in the city. The councils ot the firm 
were perfected, and he sailed for Europe. It was 
indeed something new, for while many European 
houses sent trayelling salesmen to America in 
those days, hardly any American houses, in any 
line, had the presumptiiMi to send trayelling pur- 
chasers to the Old \Vorld. 

Mr. Ycnmg's inspection was widely extended. 
He discoyered a long list of attractions, and made 
beginnings of a number of important business 
relations. Probably the most important of all 
were those which related to jewelry. At Hanau 
and Frankfort, Germany, and in Paris, were 



CHARLES LOUIS TIFFANY 63 

loiind m;inii(;ictiii"crs ol better i^raclcs ot cheap 
jewcli'X' than were previoiislv known upon this 
side ol the Atlantic. There were shops in New 
York and elsewhere which offered a superabun- 
dance of inferior goods, but here was something 
of real merit. The materials and workmanship 
were good, the designs were artistic; while the 
profits to be realized were all that could be asked 
for. No great amount of capital needed to be 
risked in a sufficiently showy beginning, and the 
new departure was made. 

On November 30, 1841, not long after Mr. 
Young's return from Europe, the partnership 
ties already existing were strengthened by the 
marriage of Mr. Tiffany to his sister. Miss Har- 
riet Olivia Young. 

The results of the new European connections 
were rapidly manifested, for whoever desired 
ornaments at a low price was willing to visit the 
one house which offered them the very best. 
The other novelties of all kinds added to the at- 
tractiveness of the now well-known salesroom, 
and strangers visiting the city came to it as to 
one of the "sights." Before long, real gold- and 
silverware began to make an appearance, and 
every piece of it was made the most of under the 
critical eye of Mr. Tiffany. He felt that he had 
gained a genuine business victory, moreover, 
when it began to be the custom for rich and 
cultured people to ask each other, on meeting, 
whether or not they had seen the latest imported 
novelty in the precious metals on exhibition at 
Tiffany's. 



lU 



^fh'x or /?r.s7.Y /=:.<< 



siip[)lant the Cicrnian inanulacturcs. and (hose 
were tollowed b\" the best work dI bdorence, 
Rome, and Paris. It was a stead v advanee upon 
a predetermined line, the one itlea of art pertec- 
ti(Mi controUiniX each step. 




FANCV ARTICLES t'H '; 



ii g^ , RICH .lEWKl.KV iJllllf * ^liH' 

11 m , CLOCKS WATCHI-S i M' I - 'i I 



I EH. 



•iflliiSllI;,-' 










The Store on the Corner of Broadway and Chambers Street in 1847, 

The first ten years of success, uninterrupted 
except by the robbery on New Year's Day. iv^40, 
tound the old quarters too narrow, and there 
was a removal, in 1847. to the coiner of Cham- 
bers Street, at 2-\ Bnxidwav, just a little be- 
low Stewart's. The new store was not onlv lar- 
iier, but vastly nu>re convenient: and in the 
tollowino- year. 1848, the firm beo-an to manu- 
tactui-e i;-old jewelrv upon its own account, with 



a cessation ol a lar^'c part ol its importations. 
Perhaps at no previous date, nor in any t>tlier 
department, had the })eculiar faculties, and what 
was now the training- ol Mr. 'rilfan\- in sound 
princii)les ol ai)i)Ued art, proved so valuable an 
element ot business success. The character of 
the work turned out rapidly established its repu- 
tation, even when it was compared with the best 
importations offered by his own or other houses. 
He had indeed been a close and thoughtful stu- 
dent of art effects ol ever)^ name and nature, and 
had acquired a thoroui^h knowledi^e of the clas- 
sic, the antique, as well as of the best achieve- 
ments of every modern school, for there was 
hardly anythin*^ in his warerooms or workrooms 
which did not operate as an object-lesson. 

Now, stej) after step, another class of lessons 
was brouii'ht before him. for precious stones of 
increasing- value and \ariety were added to the 
stock. No other house in the eit\' \yas doino- a 
larger business, but this branch was ol slow de- 
velopment on account of the amount of capital 
locked up b\ its re(|uirements. Gems came rtrst, 
followed by all the brilliant category of nature's 
wonders; and Mr. Tiffany ac(]uire(l the art within 
an art which understands the subtle fascination 
of each individual stone, and can advise its judi- 
cious treatment by the jiractical lapidary. It was. 
after all, only the more thorough education of 
the facidty which had managed so well the pres- 
entation of the Japanese fans and knick-knacks 
in the hrst show-window he had arranged on 
Broadwaw There are a multitude of men, how- 



66 MEN OF BUSINESS 

ever, who can do very well in the lower i^rades 
of any art, while the>' seem unable to climb hio-h. 
er. Not so many are needed, perhaps, in the 
upper stories of the art temple. 

It was in strict relation to the increase of such 
a business that the wealth and culture of Amer- 
ica, and especially of the city of New York, was 
advancing so wonderfuU}-. In commercial and 
financial standing among the cities of the world, 
and in all its social features, the great seaport 
of the New World was putting off its old provin- 
cial character. On one side it was assuming 
a marked relation to the whole nation and on 
the other it was becoming cosmopolitan. All 
its bonds of supposed subserviency to any ideas 
of European superiority were breaking rapidly. 
America and its chief city were gaining freedom 
in art and literature as in politics, and Mr. Tif- 
fany exercised a noteworthy agency in the con- 
tinuous processes. At every stage of advance- 
ment, from the day in which he left his father's 
cotton-mill, he had evinced great keenness ot 
business forecast and a tendency to be boldly 
ready for dealing w^ith coming events, or even 
with sudden emergencies. It is a trait of every 
strong and successful business character. Its im- 
portance is enhanced by the well-perceived truth 
that the great opportunities of life seem to come 
unexpectedl}'. Then those who are not ready 
can only stand still and see the chance go by. 
Ver}?- often, indeed, the disasters of one man fur- 
nish the opportunity of another, as was now to 
be forcibly illustrated. 



CHARLES LOUIS TIFF AMY 67 

The dealings of the h(.)iise j)laced them in close 
relations with Parisian jewellers. The French 
capital in 1848 became a kind of revolutionary 
chaos, in which the ordinary processes of borrow- 
ing and lending money were suspended. The 
rich and titled classes, purchasers of precious 
stones in time of peace, were the greatest suf- 
ferers from the current disturbances. They were 
under a sharp necessity for turning their jewels 
into cash and their excessive offerings made 
them so many "bears" upon the diamond mar- 
ket. Prices were forced down to fifty per cent, 
of peace valuations and European buyers even 
then held timidly aloof. At the first sugges- 
tion of the coming opportunity Mr. Tiffany and 
his partners began to make their financial prep- 
arations. They had money of their own to use, 
and they were able to obtain as much more as 
they needed. Every spare dollar went across 
the water after diamonds, to be brought home 
and stored away until called out from the 
vaults by the demands of American buyers. As 
soon as the European turmoil was over all 
could have been returned and sold abroad with 
profit, but there was yet another purpose in- 
cluded in the general plan of operation. The 
purchases in Paris, conducted personally by Mr. 
Young and by Mr. Banks, the head of the jew- 
elry department, had been half-way a romance, 
for they had been jealously watched and were at 
one time actually under arrest as " political sus- 
pects." They had exercised courage, fi)iessc, di- 
plomacy, as well as mercantile acuteness and 



OS Mh\y OF Jl rs LyE,<!S 

cx[)crt knowledge, and now the fruit ol their 
daiini;- and address was to be soniethiui^- nioic 
than speeulation, lor the house determined to 
step torward into the front place among Ameri- 
can diamond merchants permanently. 

Apart from any other beauty, there is a value 
attaching to some gems from their historic asso- 
ciation, and hardly anything else is more subtle 
or requires a keener perception of the demands 
of cultivated "taste" and connoisseurship. Not 
only one by one, but in large lots, the historic 
stones of Europe began to drift toward the 
sparkling show-cases of the American house. 
Among the earlier purchases came the zone of 
diamonds worn by the ill-fated Marie Antoinette. 
A few years later, when the famous Esterhazv 
diamonds were sold, Tiffanv c^ Co. paid a ium- 
dred thousand dollars for their selections. At 
the sale of the French crown jewels, in 1887. one- 
third (^f all was bought by them, at a cost of 
about half a million. Manv another glittering 
memorial came, from time to time, and each in 
turn added something to the peculiar business 
character sought to be established. It took its 
place in line with a predetermined policv. 

From his first attempt as a manufacturer, Mr. 
Tiffany, with the enthusiastic co-operation of his 
associates, had proposed the attainment of the 
best possible art results in silverware. It was 
his ambition to rival, in j)uritv of metal and in 
fineness of workmanship, the historic silver- 
smiths of Europe. The beginning was neces- 
sarily small, as to the size of tiie shop, but it was 



CHARLES LOUIS TIFFANY 69 

liberal in its judicic^us hunt for and employment 
of "workmen cunning in silver." The little shop 
grew until it was a huge block of brick and 
iron, on Prince Street, and the workmen num- 
bered live hundred. At the same time the 
policy of absolute fineness in metallic quality 
obtained for the stamp of the firm the same 
authority as in Europe attaches to the " hall- 
mark" stamp of the British government; it in- 
dicates a standard of -^wis pure silver. 

In 1853 the firm was again reorganized, Mr. 
Young and Mr. Ellis retiring, several junior 
partners coming in, and the name changing to 
its present style of Tiffany & Co. Without de- 
traction from the ability or services of any of 
the builders of the house, this had been really 
the name, in the minds of the public, before that 
day. As before the change, though now in a 
wider, more perfect system, each of the several 
departments of the extended business was un- 
der a responsible head, but the united opera- 
tions were controlled by the art purpose of the 
directing artist, who was not himself a handi- 
craftsman of any kind. 

In the following year, 1854, still larger accom- 
modations were obtained by a removal to No. 550 
Broadway, and again it was said that the house 
had gone too far uptown. Perhaps it is an illustra- 
tion of a quick perception of historic values, that 
Mr. Tiffany, in 1858, bought up, promptly, the 
unused miles of the first Atlantic cable, cut 
them up, mounted them in various styles, and 
sold them to an eaofer multitude as souvenirs. 



70 MEN OF BUSINESS 

Duriny;- all these years Mr. Tiffany had been 
a iHiblic-spiritecF citizen, but he had never taken 
any active part in politics. It hardlv seemed 
possible that he should at any time do so, but he 
did effectively, and that too in the direct line oi 
his own business. 

The winter of i860 and the early spring of 
1 86 1 broug-ht the first muttering thunders of the 
civil war to the ears of the people of New York 
City. It must be said that the first responses 
were by no means bold or patriotic. The timid, 
captiouS; wavering, were in a large majority. 
There came a time of intense depression. Most 
men were irresolute, for the future of the country 
looked very dark indeed. It did not seem so to 
Mr. Tiffany, although it was not easy to see 
what a silversmith could do in case of war. But 
the Sumter gun sounded, and at once the great 
Tiffany shop-front on Broadway blazed with 
flags, while the windows were a glitter of steel 
and gold. Mr. Tiffany himself hurried to sub- 
mit to Quartermaster-General Meigs a complete 
model of the equipments of the French army, 
then supposed to be the best in Europe. Even 
the jewels and silverware in his salesrooms were 
pushed aside to make room for military supplies. 
His agents in Europe were ordered to send over 
weapons, ambulances, army shoes, all manner of 
w'ar materials, instead of works of art ; but to 
send the best. At once, as if from general rec- 
ognition, orders began lo pour in from all parts 
of the country and he was compelled to enlarge 
his premises by adding the adjoining store, No. 



CHARLES LOUIS TIFFANY 71 

552 Broadway, to handle the new line of goods 
in. Manufacture followed the first hasty pur- 
chases, and the artists of the house were busied 
with army badges, corps and other ; with pres- 
entation medals; with the hilts and blades of 
swords of honor, and with the numberless flags 
and banners carried by the hosts that poured 
southward to the battlefields of the republic. 

Mr. Tiffany's activity went (jut in attendance 
at patriotic public meetings; in liberal cash con- 
tributions; in vigorous support of the Govern- 
ment wherever he could find a place to give it ; 
and he became one of the founders of the Union 
League Club. It is beyond all question that 
such an establishment as his, so acting, under 
such patriotic inspiration, was one of the great 
helps of the national cause. 

During the draft riot, in 1863, when the mob 
was moving down Broadway, after burning and 
plundering a number of dwellings and business 
houses up-town, word came that its next errand 
was the looting of Tiffany's. There were prizes 
there of peculiar attraction for banditti, but Mr. 
Tiffany made prompt and vigorous preparations 
for defence. The doors and windows were 
strongly barricaded, weapons were distributed 
to the employees, and the garrison was ready to 
defend a business fort. It is related that Mr. 
Tiffany insisted on charging with his own hands 
the hand-grenades and bombs which were to be 
cast from the upper windows upon anv assaulting 
mob-force. That no assault was made was onh' 
because of the decisive defeat of the mob, just 



72 JfEX OF nrsixESS 

above \Mccckcv Street. h\ a stroni;- cletachnu-nt 
ot i>()licc. 

riuTo was a continual cxpansitui ol business 
operations (.iurini;" the war vears. and aiiothei" re- 
organization became necessarw The firm be- 
came a corpc^ration, in 1868, with Mr. Titfan\- as 
president, with a branch house in London, and 
with a watch-tactorv, the hir^est in Switzerhmd. 
at Crcneva. 

Ab"ead\'. in 1867. the Titfanv disphiv of (h>mes- 
tic silverware had gained the first award at tlie 
Paris ExjKxsition. and now the house which 
began as an importer ol such goods was export- 
ing hirge anunnits of American silver art-wt)rk 
{o luirope. One alter another the crcnvned heads 
and roval personages of the Old World, in a long 
procession, made Mr. Tiffanv their "silversmith 
bv appointment," while he received from Russia 
the insignia of the Premia Digno and from France 
the cross of a Chevalier of the Legion oi Honor. 

Still, the drift of trade was up the island and 
again the expanding business called for more 
room and better accomnuniations. The old 
Church of the l^uritans. at the corner oi Broad- 
way and Fifteenth Street, was for sale, and Tiffa- 
ny cS: C(V bought it. organ, pews, and fittings of 
every name. On 13roadwav the frontage was sev- 
enty-eight feet and on iMfteenth Street one hun- 
dred and lorty. On this ground a fire-proof five- 
story building was put up and it was opened fin- 
business on the loth of November. 1870. but 
the crowds that }>oured in to look almost i>re- 
vented business. 



VUMtLKS LOUIS TIKFANY T3 

It is worth while to phice beside this building- 
a mental picture of the little salesroom parlor of 
the narrow-l routed dwelling, away down Broad- 
way, in 1837. 11 that was only as an acorn to an 
oak compared to this, nevertheless the life-germ 
was there or there coidd have been no such viof- 
orous growth, and the nature of the vitality may 
appear upon a close analysis of the record. 

Here is a great manufactorv, turning out art 
products in endless variety ; it is also a school of 
design and workmanship. The vast salesroom 
is a gallery ol innumerable masterpieces. Here 
and there are massive safes, and under all, in 
deeply sunken vaults and crypts, hre-i)rot)f and 
thief-proof, are the depositories for all the store 
ol gems and i)recious metals which make \\\) 
the accumulated stock of the foremost jewelry 
house of America. In every respect the costly 
structure is adapted to the uses of the regiment 
(jf skilled and trusted artists which ()ccu))ies it. 

Mr. Tiffany was one of the fcjunders of the New 
York Society of Fine Arts. He is also a trustee of 
the Metropolitan Museinn of .\rt and of the Amer- 
ican Museimi of Natural Histoi-w It is alto- 
gether fitting that he should also be a Fellow of 
the National Academy of Design and of the ( uo- 
graphical Society. Other memberships and trus- 
teeships, social, financial, charitable, attest the 
position he lias attained dui'ing his long and 
useful citizenship, but the ])leasantest of all his 
pei'sonal testimonials are liis himily ties and un- 
biokcn Iriendships. 

In 1S41, just after the first success a\va^■ down 



74 MEN OF BUSINESS 

Broadway, there was a wedding, and fift)^ years 
later, in a stately mansion on Madison Avenue, 
there was another, a golden wedding, such as 
no jeweller on earth can make, for the groom and 
bride of the first wedding now gathered their 
family and their friends in the house of their old- 
est son. 




John Roach. 



IV. 
JOHN ROACH. 

There are exceptional lives whose priceless 
lessons, in successes or in seeming- failures, ought 
not to go unrecorded. Not by any means the 
least important of the teachings which should be 
preserved are to be sought for among the work- 
ings of that genius which patiently, although al- 
most unconsciously, searches within itself for its 
own natural resources. These being found, from 
day to day, the battle of life is won with them, in 
spite of all imaginable obstacles. To these ob- 
stacles the w(jrld never gives due weight, in any 
estimate of the successes attained. It may be im- 
possible to do so. Nevertheless, the courage, the 
endurance, the all but blind reaching out, the de- 
velopment and exercise of inborn abilities which 
at first did not appear, not even to their possessor, 
but which were afterward proved and seen in 
actual work done, luust be set forth as offering- 
example and encouragement of a high order. 
Such men are the healthy stimulus ol other men. 

At Mitchellstown, County Cork, Ireland, on 
Christmas Day, 1813, John Roach came into the 
world. His father's father had been a well-to-do 
merchant, but had lost his property througli in- 
dorsements of other men's paper. As a conse- 



70 MKX OF BUSINESS 

qucncv. the next ucncrcition was poor in purse, 
and the times and circunistanees were altt)gcther 
unfavorable. There was hardly any darker da}- 
for Ireland than that which was marked ior all 
Europe bv the Napoleonic wars and their politi- 
cal consequences. 

The Roach familv traced its lineage back to 
gentle blood. There was a further effort to main- 
tain its position, and John was sent for a while to 
such schools as were attainable, but he received 
nothing more than the barest beginnings of an 
education. Books were a luxury almost out of 
the question where the struggle was almost one 
of life and death. Almost everything seemed to 
have passed awav except a kind of personal pride, 
self-respect in a tangible form, which was strong- 
enough to operate as a continual stimulus. In 
later life Mr. Roach told a friend that one of his 
greatest incentives to effort, when a bov, was the 
kniiwledge that his ancestors had been men of 
good degree. Out of this, apparentlv, sprang an 
ambition to climb out of the place in which he 
found himself and up to where thev had been, or 
higher. At the first it was a blind and all but 
hopeless feeling, but it made him, at the least, re- 
fuse manv evils which belonged to base associa- 
tions, and it continuallv bade him seek for and 
enter the paths in life which led upw-ard. 

The parish schools of Ireland in that dav were 
in a wretchedlv crude condition. All that voung 
Roach obtained from them, during his broken at- 
tendance, was a rude acquaintance with reading 
and writing ; with arithuictic in its crudest form ; 



,JOHN ROACH 77 

and with such other ideas relating to scholarship 
as might be picked up in the most scattering 
and chance-medley way. He was never able, in 
after years, to make good the defects of that 
beginning. Its limits were a kind of wall, and 
yet he went on and did what he did in spite of 
its seemingly insurmountable restriction. It is 
true, that as he went and worked another kind of 
education came, and of an exceedingly high order, 
but the elementary teaching, with all its aids and 
all its technical facilities for the transaction of 
business, he was compelled to dispense with. 

Out of school, the years of boyhood were 
spent very much as were those of other Irish 
boys, except that further misfortunes fell upon 
the family. As for the future, there w^as really 
no prospect for a poor Irish boy in Ireland. The 
industries of the country were bound hand and 
foot and misgovernment was almost forbidding 
the people the means of living. Ever}' remain- 
ing channel or avocation was filled to overflowing 
and there was no possibility that new ones might 
open. Hardly any darker future could have 
been set before a bright, merry-hearted young 
fellow, with a fire of ambition beginning to burn 
within him. 

In one direction only was there any sign of 
bliie sky, and that was westward, beyond the 
broad Atlantic. There, indeed, fluttered a flag, 
every star of which seemed to shine with promise 
of a better life for the down-trodden poor of 
Ireland. 

America, the United States, was the new 



7S MEX OF BUSINESS 

woild in which there was somcthiiii;' to do and 
Hbcrt\- to ch) it. There was the land of jircMnise, 
but for John Roach, as for a multitude of others, 
the Atlantic was in the wav. 

For a time the ocean barrier seemed insuper- 
able, but it was overcome at last, and, at the age 
of fifteen, he was provided with the cheapest 
kind of steerage passage for New York. It was 
the day of sailing vessels and there were hard- 
ships to be endured in the crowded steerage, but 
these were borne with boyish cheerfulness. The 
ship went v.-estward gallantlv, until she sailed 
in through the Narrows, anchored off Manhattan 
Island, and her passengers of all sorts were |)er- 
mitted to go ashore. 

John Roach was now in America, but that was 
about all that he could sav, for he had neither 
money nor friends, nor trade, nor probable oc- 
cupation. He had no distinct idea of how he 
was to support himself, but he had a most cou- 
rageous faith that he could and would do it. He 
had one advantage in the fact that all the Irish 
people v/hom he met, and thev were manv, had 
themselves been immigrants and understood his 
case warm-heartedly. Moreover, they were bet- 
ter able than they would have been in the old 
countr}- to give a poor bov a lift, and he had, 
therefore, something better before him than rags 
and starvation. Guided by such information as 
was given him, he worked his way over into New 
Jersey, to what was then known as the Howell 
Iron Works, owned by James P. Allaire. Here 
a stout boy of fifteen, readv to do anvthing. could 



JOHN ROACH 79 

earn a bare liviiii^ as a ruii-al)()ut and could i^'row 
lip into a trade and regidar waives. It was also 
a place where an uninstructecl wait from Ireland, 
without i^uide or adviser, could easily form evil 
associations and detrimental habits. All such 
enemies of success, however, were firmly put 
away, and it was not long before fixed religious 
{principles came to aid in resisting the tempta- 
tions which kept other workingmen down. He 
saw at the outset that no boy could hope to rise 
under a burden of strong drink and its attendant 
wastefulness. No such load was assumed by 
young Roach, for he was rigidly temperate in all 
things. At the same time, he was overflowing 
with good spirits and his fund of wit and humor 
made him a very popular fellow. It was not 
long, moreover, before his associates discovered 
that his geniality and steadiness were accom- 
panied by soundness of judgment, keenness, and 
decision, so that he became a kind of leader 
among them. It was this natural leadership 
which provided him with a kind of business 
capital after awhile. He was a born foreman, 
as soon as he could get hold of anything to direct. 
With the faculty came also something very like 
a passion for directing, and it led him to attempt 
great things. Ten years went by, and, in a rude, 
imperfect wa}', he had become an iron-worker. 
His busy mind, however, had made him master 
ot many things to whicli he had as vet no opj)or- 
tunity to put his hands. The work engaged in 
was too often i)ainlully severe and monotonous, 
a grinding toil with small pi'ospect of anything 



80 JAAW OF BUSINESS 

better to conic in that direction. He had long 
since earned lull wages and he had thriftih' laid 
up monev. 

There was a tide of migration setting toward 
the West, and seductive stories were told of the 
richness of the prairies, the cheapness of land, and 
the certainty of easy prosperity. Roach decided 
to go and see, and he went as far as Illinois. The 
many imperfections in the methods ft)r getting 
there made a deep impression on him, but he also 
imderstt)od at a glance that he was not cut out 
for a jnairie farmer. The raising of corn and 
pork had in it nothing in accord with his genius, 
as he was beginning to understand it. Still, the 
trip to Illinois helped him to know himself. It 
settled his conviction that his vocation was con- 
struction, particularly the shaping of iron. He 
was no machinist, not a designer or draughtsman, 
not an engineer, he coidd not keep accounts, he 
could not write a business letter, he knew noth- 
ing of commerce nor of banking. All this was 
true, and yet concerning all these things and 
many more he had been thinking, studying, and 
his mind was teeming with ideas that he could 
not as yet formulate nor express. He returned 
to New York, consulted with other workmen, 
and together they started a small foundry. This 
was on Goerck Street, and was the germ of what 
was afterward known as the .Etna Works. The 
purpose was to produce " architectural in^i- 
work," and there were already powerful rivals in 
that line of business. The foreman of any new 
competitor required to be a capable business 



JOHN ROACH 81 

man as well as a skilled workman. A time of 
severe and often harassing toil was therefore en- 
tered u})on, and besides the responsibilities of 
the shop, those of the family were often pressing 
enough, for Mr. Roach was now a married man, 
with half a dozen or more of very young children. 

As the small capital increased it was applied 
to the " plant," in the addition of steam-power 
and improved machinery, and a long range of 
varied work came in, rising from grade to grade, 
as it could be obtained or dealt with. A very 
good degree of prosperity was obtained and the 
reputation of the ^Etna Works was becoming es- 
tablished. Its manager saw the path of his ambi- 
tion opening before him, but one day even his own 
steam-power seemed to turn against him. The 
boiler in his engine-room exploded, with disas- 
trous effect upon life and property. In one mo- 
ment the whole concern was ruined, and John 
Roach, after all his years of hard struggling, was 
once more a poor man. 

It was one of those occasions which test and 
bring out all there is in a man, and either make 
or mar him. If any of his associates were dis- 
couraged, he was not. There was his family, 
which he was educating for the grade in life to 
which he believed himself and them to belong. 
There was the broad field of enterprise into 
which he had been looking forward from year to 
year, as his first successes came. Right before 
his face were the shattered ruins of his works, 
and he said, courageously : " They must be 
started again, if I do it all alone ! " 
6 



82 ^fE^^' OF nrsixEss 

That was tin- \t-r\- thiii<;- which he louiul him- 
scll conipcUetl to do, and the means for doing- it 
were niainl\- siijiplietl tlirough the personal char- 
acter he had built up, more firmly than the .Etna 
Works, tor capacity and integrity. He could 
obtain credits on his own name, and the business 
he undertook and accomplished speedily set him 
upon his feet. He had nt)w deyeloped to a high 
degree what may fairly be considered as his dis- 
tinguishing cliaracteristic. Without haying re- 
ceiyed, at the outset, more than the merest 
germs of technical education, he had discoyered 
a maryellous ability to comprehend the plans and 
work of other men. He could criticise before- 
iiand the defects or the performances of compli- 
cated machines and massiye engineering. He 
had become an excellent reader of other men, as 
\yell as of yaried mechanism. He was therefore 
ready to undertake important offerings of \york 
as fast he could discoyer and employ other men, 
differently endowed and trained, to whom he 
could intrust the designing of details and the 
processes of construction oyer which he was to 
preside as director. With reference to these, he 
could say " no " or " yes " from point to point, 
concerning any form of stone or metal as its idea 
was brought before him. 

He had been dealing \yith such ideas, in the 
busy workshop of his fertile brain, from the 
beginning of his rude apprenticeship. His ripe 
capacity declared the results of an internal edu- 
cation, obtained through years of ceaseless think- 
ing, while carrying on his roughest and most 



JOHN ROACH 



83 



laborious business. It may have been ahiiost an 
aid to him, in tliis regard, that the excessive 
heats of his earlier moulding-rooms and the deaf- 
ning clamors of the boiler-shops had greatly 
injiu-ed his hearing. He was compelled to thmk 
rather than talk, and he would not read anythmg 
which did not furnish him with some incentive 
or other to hard thinking. 

Mr. Roach had become an uncommonly good 
business man, in a well-understood use of the 
term, although he had not meddled with sci- 
entific book-keeping. He could, for instance, 
make exceedingly close estimates of the cost 
of labor and materials required for any de- 
scribed work, while the changing conditions of 
his finances were recorded in his own bram 
very nearly as accurately as upon the account- 
books kept by his book-keeper and his bankers. 

As his name became better known, the best 
engineers, inventors, craftsmen came to hmi 
with their ideas and their offers of co-operation. 
So did a swarm of adventurers and visionaries, 
and with these also he was prepared to deal with 
a shrewdness which was very apt to express 
itself humorously. 

His acciuaintance with financiers grew wider 
and capital was more and more readily placed 
at his disposal, while his own capital grew, his 
"plant" increased, and he was able, year after 
year, to undertake and carry to success larger 
and larger contacts. 

The -Ktna Works and their manager had 
gained a high reputation for large performances. 



84 MEN OF BUSINESS 

but there were those who freely prophesied a 
failure when, in i860, John Roach was the lowest 
l)i(l{ler and obtained from the city of New York 
llu- conlracl lor the great iron draw-bridi^e, piers 
and all. over the Ilarlcm l>iivcr, on Third 
Avenue. 

There was nothino- else i)recisely like it in all 
the land, lor its required strength was enormous. 
The piers and their masonry were not unlike 
w hat men were already familiar with, although 
there were serious questions relating- to their 
lountlations. The avenue itself, however, was to 
go on over the bridge, and the middle of this, 
a hundred feet in length and of full width, was 
to swing around upon a pivot, by steam power 
always ready, that vessels might go up and down 
the Harlem. Smaller swinging bridges had 
been made, scores of them, notablv in Chicago. 
Greater iron concerns might have built this, if 
they had received the contract, but could John 
Roach do it ? Vast interest was aroused, for the 
1 larlem Bridge was a matter of exceeding im- 
l)ortance to a multitude of people in New York 
and Westchester Counties. It was a kind of chal- 
lenge to him, involving great success or utter 
ruin. He liad taken it uj), and now everv part 
oi that bridge became a study that was 'toiled 
upi^n by day and night. But then it had been 
worked out, excepting as to its actual details of 
construction, before he put in his bid for the con- 
tract. The business marvel had been j^erformed 
before a stone was laid. 

The bridge was built, and never was there a 



80 Mh'N OF BUSINESS 

more conii/lctc success in iron-work, masonry, 
and cn^'ineering. Thirty years later the huge 
central span swings around upon its piyot-})ier as 
easily and as accurateh' as il it did not weigh ten 
pounds, and no defect has been discoyered. 
When it swung for the first time, howeyer, amid 
the loud acclamations of an excited throng, who 
afterward stepped upon it almost doubtfully, a 
great anxiet\' was litted irom the mind ol its con- 
tractor and he too seemed to pass onward oyer a 
great bridge into a new future. 

Several more years of very good success added 
largely to Mr. Roach's financial strength, and all 
the while his ambition had been pointing out a 
field of enterprise which appealed to him with 
irresistible }X)wer. 

The civil war had swept fn^m the high seas the 
American flag and had transferred to foreign 
keels the carrying trade between the United 
States and Europe. The day of wooden ships 
seemed almost to have gone by. Side-wheel 
steamers had given ])lace to propellers. Great 
hulls of iron, score on score, came ploughing the 
waters around New York, and not one of them 
was made by American labor in an American 
ship-yard. There were indeed a few iron ships 
in the United States Navy, monitors and the like, 
and there were yards for building them, but some- 
thing yet was lacking, for these were bv no 
means doing well. The fact that thcv were not, 
however, jjiesented Mr. ivoach with the very 
opportunity he longed foi". lie believed that he 
coidd succeed where other men had failed, and he 



JOHN ROACH 87 

pushed forward. In 1868 he purchased the Mor- 
gan Works, in New York City, with a fine water- 
front and docks. The Neptune Works followed, 
and then the Allaire and the Franklin Forge, but, 
all put together, they did not give precisely the 
facilities required by the man who was all the while 
thinking of the Clyde and its tremendous yearly 
output of English iron hulls. He was also obtain- 
ing the most minute information concerning all 
the methods of the Clyde builders. Their shops 
and yards contained no kind of appliance the 
points of which, good or bad, he had not thor- 
oughly comprehended. 

Down on the Delaware River, at Chester, 
Pennsylvania, there was a large ship-yard, that 
of Rainey & Sons, which had latterly not proved 
a financial success. It was said that nearly a 
million and a quarter of dollars had been ex- 
pended to develop it, but not all of the money had 
been wisely employed and there were defects 
requiring remedy. For less than three-quarters 
of a million, in 1 871, Mr. Roach became the owner 
and named it The Delaware River Iron Ship- 
building and Engine Works. He added to its 
area until the entire yard contained twenty acres. 
He increased all facilities with thoughtful lib- 
erality until the entire "plant" was moderately 
valued at two millions of dollars. There were pay- 
days, not long afterward, when the long lines of 
men who marched up to obtain their earnings 
numbered two thousand, and when hundreds 
more were in like manner being paid off at the 
New York shops. The ragged Irish boy who 



SS ^TEN OF BUSINESS 

could tiiul nothing- to do was now providing 
whi>lo regiments of tellers with the means of earn- 
in^- liberal wages. For each and all of them, 
as could be seen whenever he met them, their 
employer felt a fricntlly. kindly interest, as being- 
one of them, with a perfect understanding- of the 
wavs and feelings and interests of his fellow- 
workingmen. 

It was not the work of a day, for the great 
'* plant " grew while ship after ship was building, 
of everv grade and kind that can be constructed 
out of iron. Similar building- went on in the 
New Yt)rk shops, iov contracts ofTered rapidly. 

Now, however, as business multiplied in all 
directions, another of Mr. Rixich's natural busi- 
ness qualiticati(Mis became more plainly manifest. 
He had never been taught anv part of the tech- 
nicalities of finance or of banking, but he was a 
clear-headed, far-sighted, practical financier. The 
construction of a great steamship, for peace or 
war, with several others in hand at the same 
time, or of such a wink as the sectional drv- 
dock at Pensacola, Fla.. with a multiplicitv of 
minor work, repairing, rebuilding, and so forth, 
calling tor heterogeneous outlavs ; the longpav- 
rolls. which could not be postponed, and the pettv 
cash expenditures of everN- kind from davtodav, 
required a perpetuallv fvdl bank account. On 
the other hand, the heavier pavments were re- 
ceivable at long intervals and were often subject 
to perilous contingencies. For instance, a ship 
might fail of speed or i^ther qualities and might 
be rejected bv the gcnernment or bv a corpora- 



JOHN ROACH 89 

tion. As to all such matters, men had great con- 
fidence in Mr. Roach and were disposed to sus- 
tain him ; but he was going ahead very rapidly. 
There were rivalries, jealousies, even enmities, 
and his every danger and liability was narrowly 
watched in financial circles. 

There were crises occasionally, when the 
almost overstrained concern seemed to totter, 
but difficulty after difficulty was met and over- 
come, and ship after ship was launched. Large 
capital had to be tied up in the " plant " and in 
materials, and there were corporations asking 
for ships with only defective credit to lean upon. 
Always, just ahead, there was a kind of threat, 
and it might have dismayed a less courageous 
and self-reliant manager. Perhaps one element 
of his continued power to meet emergencies was 
the unwavering cheerfulness with which he 
could encourage dismayed or perplexed asso- 
ciates. At all events, there was hardly any other 
feature of his business achievement in which he 
took so much personal pride as he did in his 
finances and his unique methods for handling 
them. 

During twelve years he built at the Chester 
Works no less than sixty-three iron steamships, 
and fifty-one of various grades elsewhere, mak- 
ing one hundred and fourteen in all. Among 
the Chester-built vessels were six " monitors," 
three cruisers — the Chicago, Atlanta, and Boston 
— and the despatch boat Dolphin, for the United 
States Government. Not less important were 
the huge steamships built for the Pacific line of 



00 



MEN OF BUSINESS 




U S Cruiser Chi, 



the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. These, and 
indeed every ship turned out from his yards, 
brought Mr. Roach into cU^se relations with of- 
ficial and legislative circles at Washington. He 
was an enthusiast upon the general subject of 
American ships and American commerce. Prob- 



JOUN ROACH 91 

ably no man understood it better, but he was not 
a politician. Naturally patriotic, his individu- 
ality was too strong to be confined within the 
barriers of a party organization. For instance, 
while a stanch supporter of President Grant's 
administration and on friendly terms with every 
Republican statesman who agreed with him upon 
the protection of American ship-building, the 
candidates named in his own New York district 
for Congressmen by the Republicans sometimes 
did not meet with his approval and he gave his 
influence, almost equivalent to an election, to 
James Brooks, and afterward to S. S. Cox. 
There were frequent visits to Washington re- 
quired, and he was never wear}^ of explaining to 
legislators and others his analysis of the rela- 
tions between American iron in the form of a 
ship and the American labor which had devel- 
oped the finished commerce-carrier from the raw 
materials in the forests and the mines. Of one 
great steamer, the Tokio, he declared : " All but 
about five per cent, of her present cost price is 
wages paid to workmen." 

As time went on, the foremost statesmen be- 
came willing to consult with him and to obtain 
his fresh and quaintly expressed ideas. On one 
occasion, when the subject of American com- 
merce and the ocean-carrying trade, as related 
to American ships and the admission of foreign- 
built hulls to our coastwise trade, was before 
Congress, a leading statesman asked him for a 
written digest of repeated conversations. It was 
the purpose of Mr. Roach to" prepare a pamphlet 



92 MEN OF BUSINESS 

ami print it in response to the request. He 
calleci in the assistance of a literary friend, him- 
self an enthusiast and frequent co-worker in the 
same field, and during- several evenings they 
toiled at the task of expression and condensation. 
The completed manuscrijH was sent to Wash- 
ington for criticism and for any required use 
also, but it arrived at a peculiar crisis. The sub- 
ject was up in the Senate and the Senator was 
otherwise unprepared to meet it. He arose in his 
place and delivered a speech so full of knowl- 
edge, suggestions, mastery of the entire matter, 
that it was printed in full in the New York 
dailies as one of the "great efforts" of his life. 
So it was. The tlunights, arguments, views 
were all his own. and he was entitled to the hon- 
or of them, but there had been hardlv anv ver- 
bal changes, and the oration was after all no- 
thing but the great speech of John Roach in 
the Senate of the United States. 

The personal attachments and family ties of 
Mr. Roach were verv strong. He continually 
assisted other men, and his numerous corps of 
assistants regarded him as a friend as well as 
employer. As wealth accumulated, he ci>n- 
sented to live in very good style, but could never 
be comfortable if surrounded bv anything like 
display. His business office in New York was 
a dingy, wt>rk-a-day place to the last, and his 
habitual dress was suited to a man who belonged 
there. His manner, however, although not 
brusque, was that o{ a man accust^Mued to make 
pnnnpt decisions and to be obeyed implicitly, 



JOHN no AC II 93 

with the added idea that his mind was very 
much occupied and that his time was valuable. 

The vast business went on, year after year, 
until it struck upon the very rock which had 
been so often avoided by skilful steering. The 
despatch-boat Dolphin was rejected and 
thrown back upon his hands by government 
examiners at a bad stage of the general money 
market.. That the decision was not justified was 
at a later day proved by the final acce])tance of 
the vessel. The utterly unexpected blow, how- 
ever, was disastrous in its first effects. The 
timid money market closed its hand, credits 
ceased, and the house of John Roach & Son 
was forced to suspend. Yards and shops ceased 
their operations. So did distant iron mills and 
forges that supplied materials. The workmen 
went home and so did John Roach. Not but 
what he made a brave, persistent, and partly 
successful struggle to regain his feet, but he was 
getting old and he was tired. Not many months 
later, January lo, 1887, he closed his career, leav- 
ing behind him, in the minds of all who knew him, 
an exceedingly kindly and respectful memory of 
one of the best and most patriotic of American 
business men — a man whose splendid faculties had 
been forced to work altogether through the hands 
of other men. Genius of any kind, especially busi- 
ness genius, seeking to understand and use its 
own powers, fettered or walled in by circum- 
stances, may take invaluable courage and instruc- 
tion from the record of the Irish immigrant boy 
who overcame so much and who builded so well. 



V. 

LEVI PARSONS MORTON. 

If a man should be seen presiding, with fault- 
less dignity and perfectly equipped ability, over 
the varied deliberations of a legislative body 
second in importance to no other upon earth ; 

If he should again be observed, in the most 
critical and exacting of European capitals, serv- 
ing as the chosen ambassador of one of the 
world's two great republics to the other, and 
should be found provided with all the social 
knowledges and all the diplomatic training re- 
quired to mingle there with courtly statesmen, 
brilliant women, and others of every kind ; 

If he should again be seen in a congress of 
scientific men, exchanging thoughts with other 
thinkers, as a man acquainted with their work 
and their attainments ; 

If he should pass through all the trying or- 
deals so indicated with the strongly expressed 
approval of friends and adversaries alike, it 
might well be deemed worth while to investigate 
his career and to ascertain in what schools his 
manifestly imusual original capacities were de- 
veloped and prepared ior such eminent uses. 

It has been declared bv manv that onlv in 
sombre universities, onlv in tlie courts of kings, 




Levi PaisONj Wloiton, 



LEVI PARSONS MORTON 95 

only under the tuition of men themselves not- 
able for learning- and for wisdom can such at- 
tainments be accomplished. Something of truth 
is hidden in this declaration, no doubt. The 
diamond must be polished by the diamond, but 
the inquiry remains as to where shall be found 
the best lapidaries of intrinsic worth, to cut 
rough gems and bring out to view the best and 
highest qualities of any given human character. 

There is an answer, supplied by multiplied ex- 
amples, but not yet fully accepted. Still, it is 
better understood and admitted now than in 
former days, that the ordinar)^ business of this 
world, transacted upon right principles and for 
its own sake, as an art to be loved and a science 
to be honored, is the true and the best finishing 
school of men, whatever they may have known 
as their primary or their grammar school. 

Levi Parsons Morton was born at Shoreham, 
Vt., May 1 6, 1824. On his father's side he was 
descended from George Morton, who came 
over from England and settled at Middlcboro, 
Plymouth County, Mass., in 1623, after having 
served as the financial agent in London of the 
Puritan colonists who crossed the Atlantic in the 
Mayflower. On his mother's side he was de- 
scended from the Parsons family, equally early 
Puritan colonists, through Joseph Parsons, who 
held the rank of cornet, or at our modern rating, 
second lieutenant, in a troop of colonial cavalry. 
The cornet was also distinguished as the father 
of the first child born at Northampton, Mass. 

Every part of our country bears witness to the 



96 



MRX OF Bi'sryEss 



peculiarly valuable mental and bodily inheri- 
tance transmitted from generation to generation 
by that primitiye stock of men and women who 
dared and endured all things tor conscience's 
sake. 

Levi's earlier days were those of a hardy, dar- 
ing, intelligent country boy. He was trained in 



r 



.♦■N'- ,' 



—■^. 



-fc^l: 



■'■...... >-v',i.,^. -• -■■'•-.■■- .,■ •.■>«.,. ^ •. ', ..■l'.l•..■^■\^ I' 







The Old Morton Home at M dd^eboro, M.iss. 



the needful industries, the rigid morality, the 
religious reverence, and the patriotic traditions 
of a New England farm and village home. 

In the latter and its surroundings there was 
plainness without poverty. In the social posi- 
tion of the family, however, it is pretty well un- 
derstood that there was a great deal of the 
intense but very rational self-respect which re- 
fuses to admit the existence of any higher rank 
on earth than that of the rioht kind of Ameiican 



LEVI PARSONS MORTON 97 

citizenship. This is a feature of well-developed 
republican character which is not always easily 
understood by many whose best claims to emi- 
nence must be hunted for among the records of 
a herald's office. 

There were fairly good public schools at 
Shoreham, with a somewhat uncertain proces- 
sion of successive teachers. Instruction of a 
higher grade was next obtained in the village 
academy and in that at Springfield, Vt. 

From each in turn young Morton obtained 
quite as much as could have been expected, but 
he certainly did no more. There were books to 
be had, and he read many ; but his tastes were 
not those of a student of books. There was in 
him an overpowering element of dash, vigor, 
and enterprise which was at war with scholarly 
ways. In close alliance with this was another 
strong characteristic which quickly showed it- 
self in his keen perception concerning any mat- 
ter connected with trade or traffic. It was not 
the mere sharp-bargain instinct, which may be 
presented most obviously by a pedler or a jack- 
knife swapper. It was the disposition to study 
and the power to rapidly master the primary 
laws which govern commerce. 

There was less of disappointment, therefore, 
when, at the age of fifteen, he was informed that 
a college education could not be given him. His 
father, a liberal and intelligent man, was bring- 
ing up a family of six children on a salary, at 
that time, of only six hundred dollars. He had 
already, by rigid economy and straining his 
7 



9S MEN OF BUSINESS 

slender resources, provided Levi's elder brother 
with a college course at Middlebury, and he 
ccnild do no more. 

Levi did not ask for anything more, but was 
quite ready to begin taking care of himself. 
Emplovment was obtained for him in a country 
store at Enfield, ALiss. It was a small place and 
the store itself was small, but the world was 
pretty well represented in it. Small samples 
of almost evervthing could be found upon the 
shelves, or were stored away among the bags 
and boxes. It was somewhat like the index of a 
book, for each article of merchandise had its own 
peculiar line of associations. Moreover, all kinds 
of people came to trade, and all were so many 
human object-lessons to young Morton. While, 
for instance, he learned much concerning tea 
and coffee, about manufactured fabrics, about 
all manner of countrv produce and its handling, 
he also learned how to deal with men and 
women. While doing so, and in spite of his ex- 
treme vouth, the strongest point of his charac- 
ter began to manifest itself. This was his mar- 
vellous capacitv for winning the coiifidencc of 
all who came in contact with him. His way 
of meeting people had no repellent feature. 

If this first service behind the counter was to 
be regarded as a school, a fairlv full course was 
taken: but it was left behind when, in the winter 
of 1841-42, the voung clerk rose to the rank of a 
common-school teacher at Boscawen, Vt. This 
was but an episode or a makeshift while prepar- 
ing- lor his next venture. lie was not vet of asre 



LEVI PARSONS MORTON 99 

in 1843, ^"<^ "^^'^s somewhat embarrassed by that 
consideration, but, in association with others, he 
managed to go into business for himself at Han- 
over, N. H. It was a small enough beginning, 
and the field before him seemed narrow, but he 
widened it as time went on. Even here he was able 
to discover channels for small business enterprises 
which had not appeared to the C)- es of others. At 
the same time he took an active part in all local 
interests of a public nature and kept himself well 
informed concerning all manner of affairs at home 
and abroad. Books were a matter of course, to 
some extent, but one kind of student can read 
more in a morning newspaper than another can 
in a solid volume, and there are mental processes 
for acquiring information which strongly resem- 
ble absorption from the atmosphere. 

It is not recorded that, during this part of his 
career, Mr. Morton swerved for a moment from 
his chosen pursuit. Whatever duties of a citizen 
he might attend to, he had determined to per- 
fect himself as a man of business, and his am- 
bition grew as he was compelled to measure 
himself with other men. 

Prosperity came with reasonable steadiness, al- 
though there were also such checks as were in- 
evitable during a period in which the country 
was again and again swept by financial storms. 
Losses which operate as disasters to some men 
seem almost to have an opposite effect upon oth- 
ers. At all events Mr. Morton continually kept 
a firm grasp upon his business imtil a time came 
when he was ready to turn it over to others. 



100 Mf:X OF BUSINESS 

From the position of a prosperous country mer- 
chant it was easy to studv and investigate wider 
ticlds. and the nearest, best known of these w^as 
that of Boston. There was no haste to make a 
new venture, but in 1830 Mr. Morton became a 
member of the house of Beebe. Morgan c'v: Co.. of 
Boston. It was a U)ng step, but it was onlv a 
step, iov he had ah-eady grown beyond the stat- 
ure at which he was willing to hold a subordi- 
nate piisition. such as must be that of a junitir 
partner in a strong concern. 

More^^ver. with the mind of a genuine mer- 
chant, he was attaining a better grasp and under- 
standing of those business relations between the 
Old World and the New which were to become his 
specialty. He perceived that whatever might be 
the relations of the great New England port to 
the commerce of other nations, it was not and 
could not expect to be the centre of operations 
for the business of the republic. Perhaps it 
could also be discerned, almost unpleasantlv. that 
Boston business was already firmly held bv hands 
from which no great share oi it was likely to be 
wrested, while the vast increase was drifting 
elsewhere. After four years of success, there- 
fore, that was noteworthy, to say the least. Mr. 
Morton transferred the basis of his operations to 
New York. Here, in 1S54, he organized the house 
of Morton & Grinnell, having already established 
important connections and practically assured 
success in advance. The best part of this assur- 
ance was speedily found to be his thorough mas- 
tery of the difficult problems presented, almost 



LEVI PARSONS MORTON 101 

hourly, by the swiftly changing tides and cur- 
rents of the city of exchanges. The trained ca- 
pacity for reading and for dealing with these 
changes, as they come, is a very good substitute 
for what is called foresight. 

The higher planes of cultivated society, in 
America as in Europe, are also, inevitably, al- 
most coextensive with the higher planes of finan- 
cial and commercial diplomacy. An ornamental 
element of our social activity is more or less igno- 
rant of the use made of it, but more and more do 
the real social forces prove their vitality. The 
eminently social side of educated business life 
continually brings together the elements of busi- 
ness undertaking. Men meet, talk, agree, and 
thenceforth pull together. 

The merchants of New York, from the earliest 
days of colonial history, have been distinguished 
for social qualities, and Mr. Morton's ready wel- 
come among them was due in no small degree to 
his being an adept in the multifarious diplomacies 
of entertainment. He could meet men in the 
drawing-room with as perfect readiness as on the 
exchange, and an important result rapidly fol- 
lowed. He was found ready to meet the com- 
mercial ambassadors of Europe upon an equal 
footing, and from time to time as they came he 
formed relationships with the business world be- 
yond the sea. 

As the years went by, financial crises came ; 
convulsions of the nation's finance ; panics that 
were like hurricanes ; business earthquakes, in 
which seemingly solid structures came tumbling 



102 MEN OF BUSINESS 

down. With reference to these, from all the 
effects of which no man could hope to be de- 
livered, it must be said that Mr. Morton exhibited 
in a high degree the prescience which prepares 
beforehand for the evil sure to come. Owing to 
this, including its related prudences, his com- 
mercial undertakings were never disastrously 
broken in upon, but increased, year after year, 
while hundreds of houses older than his own dis- 
appeared from the lists. 

A great merchant is of necessitv more or less a 
banker. lie has alwavs a certain control which 
enables him to do much of his banking business 
through his own rather than through other 
hands. In a stead ilv increasing exercise of this 
control, so fullv in accord with his own tastes 
and habits, natural or acquired, Mr. Morton 
found himself becoming even more a banker than 
a merchant. There was, therefore, no suddenness 
of transition when, in 1863, his merchandise ac- 
count was parted with and his entire attention 
turned to finance. This ma}' be regarded as the 
culmination of his business education, for he was 
at once understood to possess a degree of fitness 
not often acquired by even capable men brought 
up from their beginnings in banking-houses. 

Nothing but disaster awaits the man who at- 
tempts so difficult a career without such fitness, 
and Mr. Morttni did not venture luitil entirelv 
assured of his own qualifications. The date 
chosen was itself an evidence of courage and self- 
reliance, tor the new firm of L. P. Morton c^ Co. 
opened its doors for business in 1S63. in the midst 



LEVI PARSONS MORTON 103 

of the financial tumults occasioned by the civil 
war. 

His intention, at the outset, was to take hold 
of the financial relations, private and public, be- 
tween the money markets of the United States 
and those of Europe, 

To this end, a London house was needed, not a 
mere correspondent, but his own, and at an early 
day it was established under the firm name of L. P. 
Morton, Burns & Co. It was a bold challeni^e of 
competition with great houses of historic fame 
and enormous capital, which at that time be- 
lieved themselves able to control the indicated 
field of operation. The new house stepped in 
ambitiously, some said presumptuously, among 
the Rothschilds and the Barings, but it speedily 
obtained for itself a cordial recognition and an 
established position. 

The oldest and ablest financiers discovered 
that its managing head could successfully en- 
counter them upon their own ground. Once 
more, however, he evinced his singular faculty 
for obtaining the implicit personal confidence of 
all men. The higher their own position and 
capacity, the more surely he won their reliance 
as allies or their respect as antagonists. 

The affairs from time to time proposed and 
undertaken were such as might well arouse the 
ambition of an enthusiastic devotee of business 
for its own sake. Other men also took pride in 
the fact that it was done so well. His house was 
widely recognized as a kind of national triumph, 
an American success in which his fellow-citizens 



104 MHN OF BUSINESS 

felt a patriotic interest. Its failure would have 
been heard of somewhat as the news c^f a lost 
battle. 

Six years of continual expansion, of business 
acquisitions through divers channels, created a 
demand for new and larger machinery. In 1869, 
therefore, there was a reorganization, with an in- 
crease of capital and membership. The Ameri- 
can house took on the name of Morton, Bliss »S: 
Co., while the Canadian Minister of Finance, Sir 
John Rose, left his high colonial position to go 
to London as a partner in the firm of Morton, 
Rose & Co. 

Four years later the London house was made 
the financial agent of the Lhiited States Govern- 
ment. Among its more notable transactions in 
that capacity were the reception of the Geneva 
award of $15,500,000. on account of the Alabama 
claims, and the subsequent payment of the Hali- 
fax award, on account of the coast tisheries. of 
$5,500,000. 

The head of a house so trusted and employed 
became an important unofficial jniblic servant, 
and Mr. Morton found himself in continual con- 
sultati(Mi with the business managers of the re- 
public. He became a counsellor for the Treasury 
and almost of the Stock Exchange, and a sort of 
ex-ofhcio member (^f important committees of 
Congress. It was as a ci^mplimentarv ackncnvl- 
cdgment of services rendered without pay that 
he was alterward appointed one of the com- 
missioners who represented the United States at 
the Paris Exposition. In that capacity he earned 



LEVI PARSONS MORTON 105 

general and very warm approval by his liberal 
and courteous care of the perplexing interests 
which demanded his attention. 

In addition to this he served as American 
commissioner-general to the Paris Electrical Ex- 
position, and as representative of the United 
States at the Submarine Cable Convention, 

The world of business achievement hardly 
seemed to offer any higher honor or success. 
The upper level had been reached and perma- 
nently occupied. Nevertheless, there were 
great uses awaiting a man so thoroughly well 
educated for their performance. Mr. Morton 
had been a steady and liberal supporter of the Re- 
publican party, without being a politician, in the 
common acceptance c^f that term. He had given 
his money and his influence, and had frequently 
been taken into consultation b}' the leaders and 
statesmen of his party. His advice was sure to 
be asked in emergencies, and he had become one 
of the known but unadvertised powers of politi- 
cal management. He did not pretend to be an 
orator, however, and he had never held office. 
He had not expressed any ambition for political 
distinction, but it was known that in his own Con- 
gressional district, the Eleventh, of New York 
City, he had acquired singular personal popu- 
larity. It had been, as a rule, a Democratic dis- 
trict, not a hopeful battle-ground for a Re- 
publican nominee. In 1878, nevertheless, the 
Democratic party placed in nomination a gentle- 
man whose hold upon the popular confidence 
was believed to be defective, presenting a reason- 



lOG MEN OF BUSINESS 

ablv good opportunity for a contest. Mr. Mor- 
ton was induced to enter the canvass as the 
Republican nominee, but the result was much 
more striking- than anybody had anticipated, for 
his vote more than doubled that given to his 
opponent. A very similar declaration of the 
public will followed Mr. Morton's second nom- 
ination in i8So, but his Congressional career 
was not to be very long, however creditable. In 
the Forty-sixth Congress and in the opening of 
the Forty-seventh he distinguished himself as a 
"business member." His wide acquaintance 
with commerce and finance made him of inesti- 
mable service in the committee-rooms, Avhile the 
care of bills upon the floor, after his work was 
done, was mainly in other hands. As was his 
life-long custom, here as elsewhere, he acquired 
the continuous education of his surroundings. 
He made his own all the specific knowledges of 
the situation in which he found himself. That 
is, as if he could not help it, he acquired famil- 
iarity with parliamentary laws and usages; the 
handling of debates; the strategies of legislative 
contests. He forced his way to the front as one 
of the few who were distinctly known to all the 
rest among the mass of representatives. Con- 
gress is an assembly of able men who for the 
greater part attain a kind of honorable obscurity 
— at least during their first term. 

Mr. Morton's most capable associates in Con- 
gress, including such men as General Garfield, 
then the leader on the Republican side of the 
House, perceived that his best fitness was not for 



LEVI PARSONS MORTON 107 

the business of legislation. His abilities and his 
training were administrative and also, in a high 
degree, diplomatic. He was a presiding officer 
rather than a debater, except as debates are con- 
ducted by men v;ho speak only to each other and 
without reference to any audience. 

Garfield was a reader of men, and when, in 
t88i, he became President of the United States, 
he offered Mr. Morton the choice of the post 
of Secretary of the Navy or that of Minister to 
France. The latter duty was accepted without 
hesitation, and the Congressional committee- 
rooms were exchanged for the brilliant sa/o/is of 
Paris. There were manifest reasons for such a 
choice by such a man. The Navy Department 
did not, at that date, seem to offer any field for 
the exercise of special energy. The time for its 
development was at hand, but had not arrived. 
As for statesmanship, in the position of council- 
lors to the chief magistrate, a cabinet council pre- 
sided over by President Garfield and directed in 
its policies of all sorts by James G. Blaine, was 
one in which another man might become little 
felt and barely visible. On the other hand, the 
public and private interests to be guarded or 
promoted by a Minister of the United States to 
France were mainlv commercial or financial in 
their nature, while the social side of the position 
also presented a strong attraction. 

Four years of arduous services, well performed, 
justified the President's choice. There were dif- 
ficulties and perplexities of many kinds, some of 
which, of course, grew out of the disturbed and 



108 



JA/LV OF PVSIXRSS 



chauuinu nature o[ I'lcnch politics. All were so 
ilealt with that (.ompetent critics, without dis- 
tinction ol part V. united in dcclariiii;- Mr. Morton 
an c\ccj>tionai diplomat i(.~ success. 

On the other hand, scholarly men, lookino- on 
(vom their own places. rec(\i;"nized the peculiar 
cidture obtained through, while rcipiired bv, 
these successive achievements. In 1881 Dart- 
mouth C\^lleire iiave Mr. MortiMi the desiree oi 



" V^^as^'^^'-^/^- 



Ellerslie, Mr Morton's Country Home at Rhinecliff-on-Hudson. N, Y. 

LL.D., and, as it in thoughtful approval and 
confirmation. Middleburv College did the same 
in 188 J. There have been college degrees 
awarded to distinguished citizens, trom time to 
time, to which the assent o\ the general public 
was given with a smile, which meant that the 
lumors were ornamental i^dv. and ot a kind not 
to be commonlv worn bv the recipients. 

He returned to the conduct ot the increasing 
business which pouretl like a tide thrinigh the 
iiieat bankiuii-house. but it was onlv to iliscover 



LEVI PARSOXS MORTON 109 

that he had become somelhhig more than a 
trusted financier. It was hardly upon this side 
of his character that most men were looking-. I le 
seemed even to have escaped the popular jealousy 
so apt to point its finger at those whom it distin- 
guishes as " money kings." He had not made 
upon the public mind the impression of an exces- 
sively rich man, or of a mere gatherer of riches, 
but as being altogether and successfully a " busi- 
ness man," and that is a character which Ameri- 
cans understand intuitively. It was an idea 
that S|)read, silently but continuouslv, during 
four vears following and it produced a remark- 
able but entirely natural consequence. At the 
Republican National Convention in 1888 the list 
of the party's available men was scrutinized 
with more than ordinary severity, for the vote 
was sure to be close, the })rospect was very 
doubtlid, and an error at the outset would be an 
invitation to sure defeat. The candidate for 
President, General Harrison, was selected be- 
cause of his solid strength and unassailable 
name. When the next inquiry was made for 
another candidate as secure of public approval, 
to be found, however, on the Atlantic slope, it 
was noteworthy how unerringly the sifting j)ro- 
cess put aside other names and settled upon that 
of Mr. Morton, as a representative business man. 
He received a more than two-thirds vote of 
the convention. Success at the polls followed 
and he became the presiding otficerof the Senate 
of the United States. It was a chair which had 
been occupied by a long line of distinguished 



110 MEN OF BUSINESS 

nicii. Each in succession had been called upon 
to deal with a daily tangle of such delicate prob- 
lems, often even personal in their nature, as be- 
long to the swift processes of debate and legisla- 
tion. Some had succeeded better than others, 
and there had been v^ery able men among them 
whose success had been less than brilliant. It 
was a severe test of any man's capacity. No 
doubt, Mr. Morton's parliamentary schooling in 
the House of Representatives w^as of vast value 
to him with reference to what may be called the 
revised statutes of Senatorial deliberations. More 
than that, however, was the fact that he had been 
in the almost life-long custom of presiding over 
important affairs and of courteously adjusting 
disputed balances between other men. He was 
better trained for the place than were some of 
the most adi'oit and eloquent parliamentary de- 
baters on the floor of the Senate. Of the man- 
ner in which, during four years, he met and filled 
the requirements of his high and difificult station, 
no other comment need be made than the deci- 
sion recorded by the Senate itself. At the close 
of Mr. Morton's term, every man of the eighty- 
eight members of the Senate signed an invita- 
tion to a public banquet which thev offered him, 
in testimonial of the fact that neither friend nor 
foe had any fault to find. It stands alone, the 
first honor of its kind ever awarded. He had 
conducted with perfect success, and strictly as a 
business man, the business of the Senate. 




^ 



Edwin Denson Morgan, 



VI. 

EDWIN DENISON MORGAN. 

TilK history of other countries, as well as our 
own, teaches us that the qualities of mind and the 
trainin*'- obtained by them in winning the hiirher 
<rra(les of success in business are available for 
other uses than those of commerce. Here, more 
than elsewhere, such uses arc sure of bemg given 
if at all sought for. Many of our cmment mer- 
chants have all the while worked also m other 
tields. They have been inventors, explorers, 
projectors, builders, or financiers. Others, al- 
though not so large a number, have become 
eminent as politicians, as statesmen, without sev- 
ering their relations with their original field ot 
work. The generation of business men immedi- 
ately preceding this present was fruitful in such 
instances, and among them were men who left 
their mark indelibly upon the history of their 

country. 

Edwin Denison Morgan was born at Washing- 
ton, Berkshire County, Mass., February 8, 1811. 
Mis mother's maiden name was Eliza Matilda 
Waterman. The Morgan family were among 
the earliest settlers of the township of Groton, 
near the mouth of the Thames River, Connecticut, 
from which his father removed to the new home 



11-2 



MEN OF BUSINESS 




in Massachusetts in 1809. Here the childhood 
of Edwin was passed during a few years, and 
then his father again removed to a farm in 
Windsor, Conn., not far from his former resi- 
dence. He was a man of moderate substance, 
but of high character, and his sons, while given 
the hardy training and in- 
dustrious habits of New 
England farmer boys, re- 
ceived at home the firm 
foundations of moral and 
religious culture which pre- 
pared them for whatever 
else could be afforded. 
I '•'^mmfj The schools were good, 

Jk - ^^^ but as soon as Edw^in was 

^^^^^^V old enough to work the de- 

^^^^^^^^^. mands of the farm came 
^^^^^^^^k first, and he was able to at- 
^^^j^B tend the local free academy 
. "^ in winter only, w^ith the ex- 
ception of one term at the 
Bacon Academy, in Col- 
chester. This, with such 
books and periodicals as were to be had at 
home, or borrowed, made up the apparent sum 
of his schooling ; but there were other lessons 
whose influence was apparent in all his after 
life. One of these came to him from the in- 
tense spirit of patriotism which was like the 
very air of the coast country of New England. 
The neighborhood in which his boyhood was 
passed was exceedingly rich in its treasured le- 



Gov. Morgan's Mother. 
(From an old miniature.) 



EDWIN DENISON MORGAN 113 

^ends of heroic men and women and their deeds, 
from the earliest Colonial days, and the last war 
with England seemed hardly over when he was 
learning his first letters. As he grew older, yet 
another strong incentive feeling was at work 
among the boys, not many of whom had any 
other prospect than that of making their own 
way in the world. He had not, and he was just 
the boy to become imbued wnth the prevalent 
purpose of going out into the world in search of 
something better than could be attained among 
the very restricted opportunities around him. 
He was an athletic fellow, thoroughly healthy 
in mind and body ; not over fond of books, but ex- 
ceedingly fond of out-of-door exercises and pos- 
sessing a singular quickness in estimating at true 
valuation whatever object, animate or inanimate, 
might come in his way. 

At seventeen, in the year 1828, taller and 
stronger than most boys of his age, he became a 
" clerk " in the wholesale grocery store of his 
uncle, Nathan Morgan, at Hartford, Conn. He 
was to learn whatever was to be learned there 
and he was thenceforth to support himself, but 
the manner in which he did it, and much more, 
was an astonishment to most people, although it 
might not have been to his old school-fellows. 

The business training and the knowledge at- 
taching t<j it were to the last degree miscellaneous, 
for the customers, sellers as well as buyers, wei'e 
as widely assorted in character as were the 
goods. It was a place in which to get acquainted 

with men as well as with things, and it was not 
8 



114 .VEX OF nUSIXESS 

long before young Morgan " knew everybody." 
He not only began to understand the grocery 
business in all its branches, but he began to un- 
derstand Hartford itself and to take an interest 
in its public affairs. In both directions he was 
preparing for the extraordinary future before 
him. 

His peculiar genius as a merchant began to 
exhibit itself quickly and was intelligently recog- 
nized by his uncle Nathan, so that the boy clerk 
was intrusted with duties beyond his nominal 
years, as haying an oldish head upon very young 
shoulders. 

Then, as now, the city of New York was the 
great commercial centre, but it was vastly more 
distant from inland places like Hartford. There 
were neither railways, steamboats, nor telegraphs. 
Postal communication was slow and defective. 
The great mass of minor dealers in the rural dis- 
tricts were almost altogether supplied through 
intermediates, and the produce of all kinds was 
collected and forwarded in a corresponding man- 
ner. Even for a Hartford merchant, dealing at 
wholesale, an actual business visit to the great sea- 
port was a matter of moment to be talked about 
and planned beforehand and to become almost 
family history afterward. It was therefore an 
excellent illustration of the good opinion Edwin 
had been winning, when, at barely twenty years 
of age, in 1831, he was placed in charge of a con- 
siderable shipment of country produce to be de- 
livered in New York, with full power of bargain 
and sale. 



EDWIN DENISON MORGAN 



115 



He himself felt sure that his uncle had select- 
ed the right supercargo. He had talked with 
scores and scores oi sharp New Englanders 
about the ways and methods of the city dealers, 
and he knew some of these. Even the topog- 
raphy of the city, the wharves and the streets he 




*~-*^ 



"Jsi^lW'i 



The Old Morgan Homestead at Windsor, Conn. 



was to see, were already familiar to his mind's 
eye. When he reached his destination, therefore, 
he was not at all in the character of a green boy 
from the country. He felt and acted as if he were 
at home, or had but walked out of Hartford into 
a larger village, among men with whom he was 
reasonably well acquainted. The fact that he was 
able to do so rendered that trip a sort of turning 
point in his business career. He not only sold 



116 MEN OF BUSINESS 

(Hit to the best advantag-e, but. without waiting 
lor authority or advice, which could not be had 
at that distance from home, he promptly seized 
an opportunity offered by the current market 
prices, bougdit a return cargo with the proceeds 
(^f his uncle's consignment, and returned with it 
to obtain a somewhat unusual rate of profit. 

Great was the surprise of luicle Nathan, how- 
ever high had been his tipinion of his dashing, 
trading, kcen-cved nephew. lie at once declared 
that a bov who could handle business after that 
fashion had manifestly passed his apprenticeship. 
It was time for him to become a partner in the 
concern. Morgan had already become a leader 
among the voung men. the budding politicians, 
of his own ward. He had strong views of his 
(^wn concerning the management of municipal 
affairs, and he made himself so active in urging 
them that in the following year, 1852, he was 
chosen a member of the City Council at the very 
election in which he cast his own first vote. 

There were several visits made to the great 
citv during the following four vears. and everv 
time the voung countrv merchant went there he 
found himself feeling more and more at home. 
The countrv business prospered in his hands, 
moreover, and his share of each vear"s results 
brought him neai'er to the accomplishment of an 
ambition ho Avas fi^rming. lie was readv for his 
projiosed venture in 1836. and then, at the age of 
twentv-five. he removed to New York and went 
into business for himself as a grocer on Front 
Street. That vear, and verv much more so the 



EDWIN DENISON MORGAN 117 

next, marked a time of wide-spread tinancial tribu- 
lation. The panic of 1837 swept into bankruptcy 
not a few of the old Front Street houses, and so 
the field may have been somewhat cleared for the 
operations of a vigorous new-comer. He was 
hardly that in some respects, for he already had 
formed a large number of business acquaintances, 
upon whom his almost excessive energ}- had made 
its due impression. As for the business itself, its 
earlier operations offered very few features with 
which he was not entirely familiar. Such others 
as turned up from time to time he mastered with- 
out an effort, for all their details came to him as 
if he had somewhere read them in print. Per- 
haps he had no other characteristic more marked 
than this of perpetual readiness, almost impossible 
to be surprised, and it had a foundation in the iron 
firmness, the unwavering business courage, with 
which he was prepared to grapple and overcome 
the constantly occurring perils and emergencies 
of a stormy career. Strength and courage seemed 
to develop and increase from year to year, and 
a steadily widening circle of acquaintances cor- 
dially recognized qualities so rare and so valu- 
able. With all his push and force, moreover, he 
was accustomed to meet other men with a hearty, 
kindly cheerfulness, which had in it something 
winning, coming from so robust and imcompro- 
mising a man. If he was not exactly what is called 
popular, he was exceedingly well liked, which is 
much better. 

Business grew and multiplied, and the 3^oung 
merchant himself grew with it. It was a period 



118 MEN OF BUSINESS 

of great commercial activity, during which the 
United States pushed forward ahiiost abreast of 
England in the ocean-carrying trade, while our 
coastwise commerce grew apace, and that of the 
interior began to give promise of its present pro- 
portions. The stately ships at the wharves or at 
anchor in the stream, as the Front Street grocer 
came and went, were as if they beckoned to him. 
They were his servants, and it was not long 
before the keels that he owned or chartered were 
ploughing the most distant seas, carrying to 
other lands the produce of America, or bringing 
back purchases or consignments from all the 
corners of the earth. As for the business con- 
cern which he was so rapidly building, if it were 
to be considered as a ship, he was always and 
unquestionably its captain and somewhat intoler- 
ant of any possible variation from his orders 
given or from the established regulations of his 
counting-room. This regard for discipline and 
system was what slack-handed people, inefficient 
employees, and a wide range of uncertain char- 
acters were in the habit of calling his severity 
or his tyranny. It was a steady-handed common 
sense, without which no business of any kind can 
successfully be carried on. 

The general details of a merchant's career — 
voyages, cargoes, purchases and sales at home 
and abroad, with their ever fresh excitements — ■ 
are intensely interesting to those who are en- 
gaged in them. Even their narration is often 
picturesquely useful and full of illustrations of 
men and times, but the striking incidents of Mr. 



EDWIW DENISON MORGAN 119 

Morgan's commercial transactions are almost too 
numerous for easy selection. As time went on, 
he necessarily took up the banking department 
which, in one form or another, is almost insepa- 
rable from a large mercantile business. He did 
not, however, for a long time, at least, become 
more a banker and less a merchant. As a prac- 
tical financier, in any relation whatever, but al- 
ways outside of speculative finance, his sound- 
ness in fixed principles and his prophetic judg- 
ment of the probable course of events, came to 
be relied upon almost implicitl}' by his business 
associates. Not that losses did not come, and 
sometimes heavily, for he was called upon to pilot 
his affairs through more than one season of storms 
when there were shipwrecks all around him. 

An invaluable element of his business strength 
was his capacity for reading other men and so of 
choosing wisely his partners and subordinates, 
temporary or permanent. He and his house took 
rank as belonging to the solid things " on 'Change " 
which the public expected would remain. 

While altogether a business man, Mr. Morgan 
was not the less on that account a very active 
and public -spirited citizen. The tendencies 
which made him a member of the Hartford Com- 
mon Council at twenty-one came with him to 
New York. Even while managing a moderate 
business on Front Street he began to be known 
in the political gatherings of the day as a man 
of decided opinions, which he was ready to ex- 
press at any time. 

These were not always the opinions of the 



120 MEN OF BUSINESS 

majority, bv any means, but his courage and 
ability in defending them forced him after a 
while into the position of a local leader. During 
a number of years he restricted his political 
seryices to liberal contributions of counsel, cash, 
and influence, but the s\yelling tide of exciting 
questions, municipal and national, Ayas drawing 
him in. The year 1849 found him an Alderman 
of the city, and before its close he had been 
elected a member of the State Senate for a two 
years' term. In both places his political influence 
grew with extraordinary rapidity. At the end 
of his term in the Senate he was re-elected. He 
was not an orator, unless it may be considered 
good oratory to present clearly formed yiews 
boldly and conyincingly, without a sign of at- 
tempting what is described as eloquence. His 
acknowledged power in the Senate was close- 
ly allied to that which he eyinced in his own 
counting-room, and his " ofSce desk " upon the 
floor was a yery unique centre of perceiyed 
political power, the i)ower of strong common 
sense and an unwayering will. 

At the end of his second term, in 1S53. he had 
a nominal yacation from politics, holding no 
office, but busily adyising in party affairs. In 
1855 he acce])ted the position of Commissioner 
of Emigration, mainly because the management 
of the important interests inyohed was sadly in 
need of reformation. This duty he attended to 
during three years which followed, although 
others of an eyen more pressing nature were 
meantime forced ujx^n him. 



EDWIN DENISON MORGAN 121 

The political world began to show threatening 
signs of great changes, if not of convulsions. It 
was the da}* of anti-slavery agitation, and there 
were extremists upon both sides of that question 
who were greatly in need of the restraining hands 
of moderate men. The old parties, Whig and 
Democratic, were manifestly breaking up. They 
were as "old wine-skin" bottles, badly decayed, 
not strong enough to bear the fierce fermentations 
aroused by the discussions of the right of State 
secession and the future of the Territories. Mr. 
Morgan was distinctly an anti-slavery man, but 
not what was in that day termed an " abolition- 
ist," for his steady conservatism was opposed to 
feverish utterances or violent measures. His 
very conservatism, however, compelled him to 
see and to say that the welfare of the nation re- 
quired the creation of a new and strong politi- 
cal party as a power competent to govern the 
country in the interests of freedom, wdiile pre- 
venting anarchy and protecting the Union. To 
see and declare such a necessity was also, for a 
man of his character, to take up energetically 
the business of supplying it, and the materials at 
hand were abundant, if rightly administered. 

There was a period of very sharp and exciting 
preliminary agitation, in every stage of which 
he made himself felt, so that he became generally 
regarded as one of the leading spirits, if not the 
foremost figure, in the movement in the State of 
New York. His industry at this date was phe- 
nomenal, for he was compelled to superintend the 
vast affairs of his commercial house while in al- 



122 MEN OF BUSINESS 

most ceaseless consultation with the founders of 
the new political organization East and West. 

When it was decided to hold a somewhat in- 
formal " national convention," that met at Pitts- 
burg in February, 1856, he attended as a delegate 
from New York. In his opinion the time was 
not yet ripe for definite action, nor was the body 
itself properly representative. It had been 
gathered too hastily and had no hold upon the 
popular mind. It was therefore adjourned, after 
providing for a more S3-stematic, business-like as- 
sembly to follow. This second convention was 
held at Philadelphia, June 17, 1856, and con- 
sisted largely of the men who had been present 
at the first. The impression there made upon 
them by Mr. Morgan was at once manifested in 
the hearty acclamation with which they chose 
him chairman of the convention. He was dis- 
covered to be an admirable selection as the pre- 
siding officer of such a bod}', which contained, at 
first, as many doubtful or timid men as it did of 
those who were rashly over-zealous. The pro- 
ceedings greatly profited by the peculiar power 
exerted by the chairman, but it was remarkable 
that this fact was so clearly discovered by all the 
members of the convention. 

John C. Fremont was nominated for President 
and William L. Dayton for Vice-President ; a 
platform of principles was adopted ; the new 
party was called into existence, but its first name 
was " The People's Party," that of Republican 
attaching, by common consent, not long after- 
ward. 



EDWIN DENISON MORGAN 123 

Before the convention adjourned it selected 
a national committee to take entire charge of 
the affairs of the new organization, and at the 
head of this, as chairman, it placed Mr. Morgan, 
with responsibilities which few men would have 
been fitted for. It was a position which he con- 
tinued to hold during eight years that followed. 
At the end of that time he exchanged it for the 
chairmanship of the " Union Congressional Com- 
mittee," which he retained, in like manner, year 
after year. 

The " Fremont campaign " was one in which 
the only success to be reasonabl}' hoped for was 
in State and municipal elections and in the gath- 
ering and welding into unity of the varied hete- 
rogeneous elements of which the new political 
body was to be composed. To this work Mr. 
Morgan gave himself with all energy and with 
considerable expense, and he proved that the 
construction of the framework of a party and 
its rapid extension over a vast area are alto- 
gether like other business undertakings. He 
did not at first permit himself to be named as a 
candidate for office, but he exercised much in- 
fluence over a large number of the nominations 
made, especially in New York. Here, too, his 
judgment of men came into play, and a long list 
of young men who were afterward prominent 
in political affairs owed their first recognition, 
their summons to important activities, to the 
quick perception and vehement urging of Edwin 
D. Morgan. General Fremont was not elected, 
but he carried more States (eleven) and more 



1-24: MEy 0?' nUSIKESS 

votes in the eleetoral eoUege {one huncired and 
fourteen) than any but the most sanguine had 
expected. The ne\v partv alst) obtained control 
of the House of Representatives, but perhaps 
the best result accomplished, with reference to 
the future, was the adniirablv efficient condition 
attained bv the brand-new machinery of the 
partv organization. 

Tlie next State electitMi in New YcM-k was in 
1S58. and Mr. Morgan was elected Governor for 
a two vears' term. His position had now be- 
come indeed important, as manager of ti\e par- 
ty and as Executive of the Empire State. It 
was a time which called for strong men. There 
were two vears more of increasingly hot and 
perilous agitation, during which the most ur- 
gent private interest might well be laid aside 
that ever\- energv might be given to tiie State 
and the nation. In the Lincoln campaign of 
i860 Mr. Mt)rgan"s etihciency was warmly ac- 
knowledged, and he was again chosen Governor 
of New York, that he might be in a }n)sition to 
give all the strength of the State to the supi>ort 
of the nati(Mial g(nernment and the preservatiiMi 
of the Union. Bitter as had been the jn>litical 
contest, and loud as were the threatenings of 
the advocates of " secession," manv able men re- 
fused to believe that war was coming, but Mr. 
Morgan was not one of them. He began at once 
to prepare f(n- the trving responsibilities of a 
" war Cioxernor " of the State which must neces- 
sarilv furnish more men and more money than 
anv other. -And whose attitutle ami action would 



EDWIN DENISON MORGAN 125 

surely give the tone or set the example to be 
followed by lesser commonwealths. The State 
of South Carolina seceded ten days before Mr. 
Morgan took the oath of office for his second 
term, but he was already preparing to respond 
to the counter-proclamation which he knew must 
shortly come. The militia system of New York, 
outside of a few city regiments, was decidedly 
upon a peace basis. Not one of those regiments, 
even, could be maintained in the field, for there 
was no such thing as a quartermaster's or com- 
missarv's department, except on paper in the 
pigeon-holes of a dusty office-room of the capitol 
at Albany. Mr. Morgan looked around among 
his capable young men and asked one of them, 
named Chester A. Arthur, to go with him, as a 
member of his military staff, to put the State on 
a war footing as rapidly as might be, and to be 
ready to respond to any call for troops. It was 
an admirable selection, for General Arthur be- 
came the very life and soul of the rapidly de- 
vised methods for hurrying to the front all 
troops whatsoever that passed through the cen- 
tral military depots of the city of New York. It 
was partly with reference to volunteers from 
other States, over whom, as Governor of New 
York, Mr. Morgan had no legal authority, that 
President Lincoln shortly appointed him a major- 
general of volunteers, and made the State a 
military department under his command. Vol- 
unteer officers could, therefore, report to him, 
and any within his district were imder his direc- 
tion, if the needs of the service required it. The 



120 MEN OF BUSTNES8 

Now York militia also became the Army of 
the Northern Frontier. He accepted the com- 
mission for the sake of the uses inv'^olved, but he 
refused to draw pay or rations, or eyen for the 
reimbursement of many actual outlays. These, 
indeed, in all tlirections, had been largely in ex- 
cess of any appropriations placed at his disposal 
by the State. The moyement of the militia of 
Ne\v V(Mk was at no time hindered by the lack 
ol funds. Only at the outset the Goyernor and 
his capable aid were compelled tt) be cautious, 
eyen in spending their own tunds tor war prep- 
arations, lesl they should arouse critical ieal- 
ousies both at the North and at the South. 

The Sumter gun sounded, and the President's 
proclamation calling fcu- troops was issued on the 
15th of April, 1861. and at once the quota of New 
York militia began to go forward, while all oyer 
the State regiments began to form for the yolun- 
teer seryice. What this might be was as vet not 
eyen outlined, but the Goyernor went on with its 
first stages of preparation, very nuich as if he 
already knew what the next demand would be. 
A number oi hastily formed but pretty well 
equipped regiments were sent to the front before 
any act of Congress proyided for their recep- 
tit)n. They were on the ground and others were 
ready ti> go forward, when the Bull Run defeat 
was so swittly tollmved by Ct)ngressi(,Mial legisla- 
tion placing half a million of men at the sum- 
mons ot Tresident Lincoln. The rusty, defective 
military machinery of the vState. in time of peace, 
was replaced by bureaus of organization, equip- 



EDWIN DENISON MORGAN 127 

ment, transportation, and maintenance, whose effi- 
ciency rivalled that of a first-class business estab- 
lishment. The position assumed by the Empire 
State was of inestimable value to the national 
cause all over the land, and the w^arm personal 
friendship of the President was one of the honors 
won by the stalwart patriotism and striking 
ability displayed by its Governor. 

Two years that were very long to live and 
very short to look back upon, brought Mr. Mor- 
gan's official term to a close. Disasters in the field 
had been counted twice by the war-wearied people 
and advantages won had certainly been much 
underestimated. A very large part of the Re- 
publican vote was in the army, and so the party 
was defeated at the polls. There was to be an 
opposition Governor of New York, although one 
by no means lacking in patriotism, but the public 
services of Mr. Morgan continued, for he was 
transferred to a seat in the Senate of the United 
States for a six years' term. 

It was a time when thoroughly trained busi- 
ness men were sorely needed in that body, for 
the questions of the day were financial much 
more than otherwise political. Congress had 
indeed a large burden of general legislation upon 
its hands, and it rightly considered itself the co- 
(nxlinate of the Executive in scrutinizing every 
feature of the conduct of the war. Still, it was 
practically resolved into a Committee of the 
Whole on Ways and Means, and there were 
those among its membership whose previous 
experience had brought them only crude per- 



128 MEN OF BUSINESS 

ceptions relating to the taxable resources of the 
country and the science of turning available cred- 
its into debt-paying paper. The just weight due 
the counsels of the New York merchant-states- 
man was accorded him at once. He was placed 
upon the Committees of Finance, Commerce, Pa- 
cific Railroad, and the Library. It is recorded 
that during his entire term he did not miss a 
single session of the Senate, but was always in his 
place ready for business. His work in the several 
committee-rooms was of the most valuable char- 
acter and its performance was tireless. He was 
in the full vigor of a manhood unimpaired, for 
his habits from boyhood had been rigidly simple 
and correct. He had wasted nothing and he 
could therefore endure toils that were too exact- 
ing for the bodily strength of many another able 
man. 

Mr. Morgan was a good parliamentarian and 
could hold his own as a general debater, but he 
never consumed the Senate's working hours in 
speech-making. He was a legislator confining 
himself to business upon the principles which 
had given him his successes as a merchant. 

The various important financial measures of 
President Lincoln's first term owed so much to 
the New York Senator, that at the beginning of 
the second term he was offered the portfolio of 
Secretar}^ of the Treasury. It was declined for 
what seemed the manifest reason that the na- 
tional finances of the future required him to 
remain in the Senate. His decision was un- 
doubtedly as correct as it was unselfish, and he 



EDWIN DENI80N MORGAN 129 

continued his watchful service through all the 
stormy years of President Johnson's administra- 
tion. 

At the end of his Senatorial term, in 1869, there 
was nothing- to demand any special devotion to 
politics. The affairs of the nation were in good 
hands, while the affairs of the house of E. D. 
Morgan & Co. seemed to ask for the return and 
attention of its head. They had been managed 
by capable and trustworthy men, always more 
or less in consultation with him, and the credit of 
the firm stood high at home and abroad. Even 
when the panic of 1873 came, a few years later, 
and the whole '' Street " seemed to go down to- 
gether at once, no trace of the storm was left be- 
hind upon the financial position of the old war- 
Governor. 

Not that he was really old, but that every 
resident New Yorker had known him for so long 
a time, during all of which he had been a prom- 
inent and often a striking figure. It was said 
that his presence upon the platform, at a public 
meeting, was somewhat like adding a very large 
percentage to the number of men present. It 
surely added much to the force and respecta- 
bility of the meeting, for he was now, in more 
respects than one, a historic character. 

However that might be, he was an exceedingly 
hard-working character, for he was a busy di- 
rector in banks, railway and telegraph com- 
panies, and a trustee of several charitable institu- 
tions. There were also family and social duties 
which he did not neglect, and he was during 
9 



130 MEN OF BUSINESS 

many years the president, adviser, and liberal 
helper oi the Women's Hospital. He was well 
known as a jntlieious and wisely serutinizing 
giyer, disjiosed to know exaetlv what was to be 
done with the money oiyen and to act as a di- 
leetinii; eonnselloi" wheneyer he saw a need. 
Sometimes, tot), his advice was worth quite as 
much as his money. Of his larger gilts, $100,000 
went to Williams College, Massachusetts, and an- 
other $100,000 to the Presbyterian Theological 
Seminary. 

In September, 18S1, Chester A. Arthur became 
President of the United States. He had request- 
ed the Cabinet ot^cers appointed by President 
GarheUl to remain with him. and all but the 
Secretary ot the Treasury did so. The President 
at once olfered that portlolio to Mr. Morgan and 
sent the nomination to the Senate, where it was 
prompth- confunuHl. It was a graceful recogni- 
tion alike ot the old and strong tic between the 
President and his early friend, and of the high 
character antl eminent public services of the 
nominee. It could not be anything more, how- 
ever, lor the sturdy strength which had en- 
dureil so well was beginning to yield and the 
hont)r was declined. Only twti years later, Feb- 
ruary 14. iSSi. the hMig and useful career oi the 
merchant-juince and patriotic citizen closed, 
amiil an almost universal acknowledgment that 
i)ne ol the strongest men in the country had 
finished his work. 




/iArr^^Jdu^ 



VII. 

CYRUS WEST FIELD. 

There was a time when regions and places 
on the surface of the earth were in all respects 
separated from each other by measurable dis- 
tances. The time required for communication 
from point to point was governed by the speed 
of such methods, horse or ship or foot, as might 
conve}^ a man, a messenger. Very nearly in a 
related correspondence was there a wideness of 
separation in feeling among communities and 
nations. Sympathies were narrowed, neigh- 
borly feeling could not grow, and in times of 
trial the hands which might have helped were 
too late in coming. Numberless were the in- 
stances of resulting evils, greater or lesser, for 
even battles were fought after the nominal re- 
turn of peace, but before it could be announced 
in the opposing camps. At New Orleans, Jan- 
uary 8, 1815, all the bloodshed and suffering 
were needless, for the treaty of Ghent had al- 
ready been signed two weeks when General 
Pakenham fell and his veterans recoiled from 
before the American lines. 

The invention of the electric telegraph and the 
construction of land lines began at last to work 
a kind of revolution, but the victory over dis- 



132 MEN OF BUSINESS 

tances, so important to the future of the world, 
was only half won so long as the wide reaches of 
the oceans remained impassable. 

The world before the telegraph and the world 
since its coming are hardly the same, in many 
great features, but the transition from the old to 
the new is already an almost forgotten story. 
We are so accustomed to the news of all the 
earth that we receive it like the air, and think 
and talk as if our ancestors had done as we do. 

There was a long all but desperate struggle 
before the oceans ceased to be barriers in the 
path of the electric current, and the hero part of 
that struggle was borne by a man who went into 
it altogether as a man of business, undertaking 
an enterprise in the soundness of which he had 
what may be described as " business faith." In 
so doing he offered a perfect illustration of an 
element essential to every permanent or consid- 
erable business success. 

Cyrus West Field was born in Stockbridge, 
Mass., February 20, 18 19. The family to which 
he belonged has been fruitful in men and women 
of exceptional ability through several genera- 
tions. His own parents were in moderate cir- 
cumstances, but he received excellent home 
training and with it all that could be obtained 
tn^n the very good public school and academy 
ol Stockbridge. Although fond of books, he was 
a tough and hardy boy, and evinced a spirit of 
adventure which was to bear remarkable fruit 
in after years. 

He was only hfteen when it became desirable 



emus WEST FIELD 133 

that he shouUl bci;-in to do smnclhiiii;- tor hiin- 
sclt, and an opcMiint;" was reach' lor him. An 
ohler brother, David Dudley Field, was bei;-in- 
ning to win success as a lawyer in New York, 
and througli him empU)yment was secured in 
the flourishino- dry -goods house of A. T. Stewart 
cS: Co. It was a capital school in which to study 
the ways and means for success in business, but 
the young scholar from Stockbridge did not be- 
come devoted to business for its own sake. Es- 
pecially, he formed no liking for the dry -goods 
business. Nevertheless, he remained with Mr. 
Stewart during about six years, acquiring the 
confidence of his employer and of other men. 
He had been looking around iiim for another 
kind of opening and he had found one. When 
he became of age, in 1840, he ceased to be a 
clerk that he might set out for himself, with 
others, in the manufacture and sale of paper. It 
was a comparatively small beginning, but the 
paper business was itself in its infancy. From 
that time onward the demand and consumption 
were to increase with marvellous rapidity. So 
w^ere all the machinery and appliances of manu- 
facture and the sources of supi)ly of varied 
materials. It was with reference to this develop- 
ment of the business he had selected that the 
peculiar faculties and training of Mr. Field 
came out into strong contrast with those of 
some of his slower-footed competitors in the 
paper trade. He grew with the growth of the 
demand, meeting it with so much of shrewdness 
and enterprise year after year that he was only 



134 MEN OF BUSINESS 

thirty-six years of age when he decLared that his 
fortune was siif^cient and he was ready to retire. 
Not only had he money enough ; his family re- 
lations were all that he could ask for ; his home 
was an acknowledged social centre ; there was 
no need for toiling so severely any longer ; but 
he longed to see the world and know what was 
in it. He would, therefore, give himself to books, 
to art, to travel, to whatever ways in life the pos- 
session of wealth, position, and friends might en- 
title him. 

Six months were spent in travel in South 
America, among rivers and mountains and peo- 
ples outside of the accustomed paths of rich 
American tourists, but all the while a remark- 
able proposition had been preparing for his 
return. His brother, Matthew D. Field, and 
Frederick Gisborne had planned a telegraph 
line across Newfoundland, to meet the news of 
Europe at the coast and send it to New York. 
It would be " six days or less " from its starting 
point on the other side of the ocean, if the plan 
could be carried out, and all the vague possibili- 
ties of cable telegraphy came in as hopes to add 
to its attraction. 

This at first did not seem to be very strong, 
and Mr. Field resisted it. All his pleasant visions 
of the life to be led by a retired merchant 
seemed to draw him in an opposite direction. 
They argued, however, and he pondered, and 
all the while a great, dream of a vast, world- 
serving enterprise crept into his mind and fixed 
itself, taking permanent possession. The trans- 



GYRUS WEST FIELD 135 

atlantic cable had become the business of his 
life. 

The idea was by no means new. While study- 
ing the outlines presented him, he wrote to his 
friend, S. F. B, Morse, and received for reply 
that the inventor himself, as long ago as 1843, ^i^d 
reported to the Secretary of the Navy : " Tele- 
graphic communication on the electro-magnetic 
plan may with certainty be established across 
the Atlantic Ocean." 

As to the ocean itself, its tides and currents, 
its deeps and shoals, the acknowledged authority 
was Lieutenant M. F. Maury, of the navy, and in- 
quiries sent to him brought back an encourage- 
ment that was almost startling in its nature and 
timeliness. The recent soundings made by the 
United States brig Dolphin had defined the exist- 
ence of the great North Atlantic bottom plateau, 
with an oozy bed that seemed as if it were made 
to rest cables on. Moreover, recent experiments 
in the use of gutta-percha for purposes of insula- 
tion seemed to set at rest some causes of anxiety 
concerning the character of the cable to be 
laid. As to the route across Newfoundland, it 
presented somewhat vaguely the idea of a 
rugged wilderness to be penetrated. 

Perhaps Mr. Field did not yet know how com- 
pletely he had given himself up to the enterprise 
which was taking form in his hands as he pro- 
ceeded with his inquiries and calculations. He 
had now gone far enough, however, to assume 
the position of its eloquent advocate, when he 
prudently began to "ask the advice" of such 



CYRUS WEST FIELD 137 

men as he selected for desirable associates. His 
own views and plans were in shape for vivid pres- 
entation before they w^ere heard and scrutinized 
by a coterie of the clearest-headed business men 
in America. His next-door neighbor was Mr. 
Peter Cooper, a man of rare acuteness and judg- 
ment, but overflowing with business dash and 
courage. To him, first of all, the new scheme 
was presented across the library table, and his 
prompt and strong approval, with an assurance 
of pecuniary support, was a great encouragement 
to Mr. Field. His own brother, David Dudley 
Field, had already joined him heartily, and there 
was need of a cool, capable counsellor learned in 
the law. 

It was Mr. Cooper's opinion, as well as that of 
Mr. Field, that the general public should not be 
consulted nor asked to contribute. The nature 
of the adventure required that only a few strong 
hands should carry it. The next recruit sought 
was Mr. Moses Taylor, one of the leading capi- 
talists of the city, and known also as one of the 
hardest to convince. An introduction was ob- 
tained, and Mr. Field himself recorded that the 
keen-eyed financier sat and listened to him a full 
hour without speaking a word. He then gave 
his assent, however, and he also brought in his 
friend, Mr. Marshall O. Roberts, a man whose 
name was as a synonym for dash and enterprise 
to all the generation of business men that knew 
him. The next man enlisted, almost against his 
will until his enthusiasm was aroused, was Mr. 
Chandler White, a retired merchant of large 



13S JTEX OF BUSIXESS 

wealtli, a personal friend of Mr. Field. It was 
now sug\2:ested bv Mr. Cooper that five were as 
g-()od as ten if thcv wt)uld pull together, and re- 
cruiting- ceased, but Mr. Wilson G. Hunt, an emi- 
nent merchant, joined them about a year later. 

Mr. Field, accomixmied by his brother and Mr. 
White, were now ready to make a first and some- 
what stormy yoyage to St. John's, Newfound- 
land. They were well received with assurances 
of co-operation from the colonial government, 
and after a surrender of what may be called the 
Gisborne charter, of a preliminary undertaking 
which had failed for lack of capital, a new com- 
pany was chartered, with a right of way, a grant 
of land, and some financial help, under the name 
of the New York, Newfoundland cS: London Tel- 
egraph Company. 

As yet the ocean cable was a thing of the 
future and of doubtful experiment. It was a 
dream entertained by Mr. Field and his brother 
and their four visionary financiers, but for which 
sober-minded people were not vet quite ready. 
The idea i)resented tor immediate realization was 
a telegraph line across Newfoundland, a cable 
across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connection with 
land telegraph lines to New York, and then the 
establishment of the fastest steamship line on 
earth. Each steamer was' to touch at St. John's 
long enough to land news, and this could then be 
telegraphed to New York, possibly only five or 
six days trom London, and the reverse process 
was to be accomplished at a point on the Irish 
coast, a land line across Ireland and a cable to 



CYRUS WEST FIELD 139 

England. It was a daring- scheme, but it had in 
it no traces oi the wiichiess which attached to the 
idea of a telegra})hic rope in)on the bottom of the 
deep sea. 

The first action consisted in the general pay- 
ment of debts belonging to the old company and 
assumed by the new, much to the gratification of 
many people in St. John's, and then the Ameri- 
can party set out for home. Perhaps the char- 
acter of the five cable visionaries may appear 
somewhat from the fact that their other business 
engagements were pressing, so that Cyrus W. 
Field and Chandler White, with their report, met 
Moses Taylor, Peter Cooper, and Marshall O. 
Roberts in David Dudley Field's dining-room on 
Monday morning, May 8, 1854, before six o'oclock. 
The new company was organized ; a million and 
a half of dollars was subscribed ; Peter Cooper was 
made president, Chandler White vice-president, 
Moses Tavlor treasurer, all before the sun was 
well up ; and then part of tlicm went home and 
the others sat down to breakfast with a general 
understanding that the company expected Cyrus 
W. Field to go on and do whatever he might deem 
needful. 

The first part of the undertaking, the New- 
foundland line, included, under the provisions of 
the company's charter, " a good and traversable 
bridle road eight feet wide, with bridges of the 
same width," along the entire distance, over four 
hundred miles. The country was a wilderness 
of mountain, forest, and morass, over which win- 
ter reigned during fully half of each year. Of 



U(^ MEN OF nrsjJVESS 

large sections of the proposed pathway, in fact, 
there had as yet been no considerable explora- 
tions since the discovery of the coiintr}-. The 
cost of overcoming the difificulties which arose 
at every step as the work went on was much in 
excess of the first estimates, but the projectors 
did not flinch. Whenever Mr. Field W' as in New 
York his house was the ofifice of the company, 
and its directors spent their evenings there dis- 
cussing the Newfoundland wilderness ; but tow- 
ard the end of 1854 they were ready to send him 
to England to contract for the cable to be laid 
across the Gulf of St. Lawrence and to connect 
Cape Ray with the Island of Cape Breton. 

It was the first of more than forty voyages 
made across the Atlantic by Mr. Field. He 
secured his short cable, but discovered that the 
time was not ripe, nor the minds of men, for pre- 
senting the idea of the longer line. His only 
convert was Mr. Brett, already distinguished for 
his success in laying two cables across the British 
Channel. Mr. Field returned and all things 
w-aited until the following summer. By that 
time the land lines were doing well and a hun- 
dred and forty miles of "bridle road" were 
opened across the Island of Cape Breton. 

The Gulf cable was shipped and came across 
the ocean safely. All things seemed to be going 
well. Even the weather was good when the 
work of laying began, on the 7th of August, 
1855. When abcnit f(^rty miles had been paid out, 
however, a violent storm arose and the captain 
of the bark which carried the cable was com- 



GYRUS WEST FIELD 141 

pelled io cut loose in order to save his craft from 
utter wreck. The loss was hopeless and the 
work went over to the following vear. If it had 
been in the hands of weak men it would have 
been given up, but there were a few neighbor- 
hood consultations, and then Mr. Field going 
again to England, the additional cable was 
ordered, and also the proper fitting up of a 
steamer instead of a sailing vessel to carry and 
pay it out. 

The year 1856 came; the cable was laid suc- 
cessfully ; the land lines worked well ; there was 
telegraphic communication from New York to 
the most easterl}' point of America at which the 
proposed line of steamers could deliver news, 
and the first great advance had been made tow- 
ard a cable across the ocean. Thus far the pro- 
jectors had paid out over a million of dollars in 
nearly equal portions, Mr. Field somewhat more 
than the others. Small sums had been contrib- 
uted by Professor Morse, Robert W. Lowther, 
and Mr, Brett, the cable-builder of England. 

Now, however, another change came, for the 
admission of Mr. Wilson G. Hunt to the board of 
directors and to a share in the financial burdens 
was made upon the death of Mr. Chandler White. 

The changes among associates ; the unexpected 
trials and reverses ; the long delays ; the per- 
petual assurance that success of any kind was 
yet a thing of the far future — all are important 
considerations in a study of the kind of mental 
and moral fibre capable of exercising the faith 
which wins success. 



142 MEN OF BUSINESS 

Ouriiiii' all this time the i2;cneral subject o[ 
ocean-cable telegraphy had received a great deal 
of careful studv, accompanied bv numerous ex- 
periments, bv the best electricians oi Europe and 
America. There were vet mechanical obstacles to 
be overcome and iiroblemsof transmission which 
had not bv anv means been solved. The keenest 
aiul most hopeful investigators were the verv 
men to whose mintls everv doubt was sure to 
suggest itself. 

Neither bt>nds wov stock of the companv had 
been placed wyion the general market, but now a 
quarter of a million ol dollars in bonds was issued 
and taken at jxir bv the associates themselves 
prior to an attempt at obtaining English co- 
operation. The next step required that Mr. 
Field should go to England, taking his familv 
with him. and reside there while conducting 
financial negotiations and superintending experi- 
ments. He went in the summer of 1856. with 
full power of all kinds. One of his first ciMisul- 
taticMis after reaching LcMidon was with his old 
friend Brett, and he learned how deep an im- 
pression hatl been made bv the difhculties met 
bv that gentleman in laving the channel lines and 
liv the fust hiilure in the Gulf oi St. Lawrence. 
It so much had to be overcome in la\ing less 
than three lumdred miles of cable, what impossi- 
bilities might block the wav of one three thousand 
miles long, if that was to be its actual length ? 

Nevertheless. Mr. FieUl met with a great tleal 
of cordial encouragement, esiieciallv from scien- 
tific men and constructors. Among these was 



GYRUS WEST FIELD 143 

Mr. Brunei, the buiklcr of the i^rcal stcamshi[) 
Great Eastern. He took Mr. V'wXd to look at 
the vast hull that he was puttint^ toj^ether, and 
remarked : "There is the shij) to lay the Atlantie 
cable," but neither of iheni had any idea of what 
was really in store lor her. 

While other hnancial nei^otiations were i^oin^- 
on Mr. Field ()i)ened relations with the British 
Government and was listened to by men of broad 
and liberal statesmanship, fully capable of com- 
prehending the results of the proposed achieve- 
ment. 

Autumn came and nearly passed before a 
definite success seemed near. In November a 
favorite sister of Mr. Field, who had accompanied 
him, died in Paris, while he and his family were 
making a pleasure trip to France, but he returned 
from her funeral to be stirred into activity again 
by the decision of the treasury lords. It was 
given in the form of an offered contract with the 
company that the cable should be laid and that a 
subsidy of fourteen thousand pounds sterling [)cr 
annum should be paid, from the date of the com- 
pleted laying, and that the governments of Great 
Britain and the United States should have ecpial 
rights in the use of the line. Other helps and 
]3rotecti()ns were promised and a financial basis 
was obtained. A new C()m[)any was organized, 
called the Atlantic Cable Company, with a cap- 
ital of three hundred and fifty thousand pounds, 
and Mr. Field undertook to obtain subscrij)tions. 
ITe began in London, aided by enthusiastic 
friends, and he went to Liverpool and Manches- 



144 MEN OF BUSINESS 

ter to address the Chambers of Commerce of 
those cities, but he had no need to go further. 
Subscriptions poured in, even excessively, and 
his own original subscription of two-sevenths 
was cut down to one-fourth, or eighty-eight 
thousand pounds, which he expected to dis- 
tribute among American subscribers. It was not 
a "promoter's share," but every dollar of it was 
actually paid in money, and the contemplated 
distribution, owing to a succession of interfer- 
ences, was onl}^ in part ever made, the main bur- 
den of it remaining upon Mr. Field himself. 

The next immediate anxieties in Eneland re- 
lated to the mechanical construction of the cable 
itself and to the methods and perils of its paying 
out from shipboard. These, however, had to be 
left, for the time, in other hands, for questions of 
vital importance summoned him to the United 
States, He arrived in New York on Christmas 
Day, but not for rest or a holiday, for there was 
an imperative demand for his presence in New- 
foundland. A tempestuous passage landed him 
at St. John's under the care of a physician, but 
he toiled on and reached New York again, his 
errand accomplished, after a month of continual 
exposure, sickness, and suffering. It was a part 
of the price of the cable. The very day after 
his return he went on to Washington to ask from 
his own government something like the recog- 
nition he had received from the statesmen of 
Great Britain. 

So far as President Pierce and his Cabinet 
were concerned the response was all that he 



CYRUS WEST FIELD 145 

could have asked for, but the assent of Congress 
was needed, and this body was at that time un- 
fortunately constituted. Even the Senate, while 
it listened to the argufnents of Senators Seward, 
of New York; Rusk, of Texas; Douglas, of Illi- 
nois; Bayard, of Delaware, and other able men, 
in behalf of the cable enterprise, was neverthe- 
less so inert or so suspicious that the required 
legislation was at last carried through, after a 
severe contest, by a bare majority of one. In 
the House of Representatives there was an oppo- 
sition as narrow and obtuse. Only at the end of 
the session did the cable bill pass, as closely 
almost as in the Senate, and it was signed by Pres- 
ident Pierce on the 3d of March, 1857, ^s one of 
the latest acts of his administration. 

With the passage of the act of Congress the 
cable enterprise put on a new aspect. Its funds 
had been provided ; its cable and appliances were 
approaching completeness ; the Newfoundland 
land lines and the cable across the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence were working well ; the two nations 
were apparently in accord, and even the question 
of the transmission of messages seemed to be an- 
swered hopefully by the later experiments of the 
electricians. 

Our own government assigned the Niagara, 
the best and largest steam-frigate in the world, 
with her armament removed, attended by another 
fine ship, the Susquehanna, to the work of laying 
the cable. The British Government had in like 
manner placed the Agamemnon and the Leopard 
at the service of the company. The Niagara was 
10 



146 MEN OF BUSINESS 

to begin the work and, after a splice in mid- 
ocean, the Agamemnon was to finish it. The 
shore end was anchored on the 5th of August, 
1857, after a long succession of courtesies and 
festivities. So far as the science and skill then 
available could provide, all seemed to promise 
well, and at an early hour next morning the 
cable fleet moved away. Before it had sailed 
five miles, the heavy and somewhat inflexible 
cable used for the shore end caught in the ma- 
chinery and snapped in twain ; but the Niagara 
put back, the lost line was lifted and spliced and 
another beginning was made. The feeling on 
board is described as intense. The suppressed 
excitement, the ceaseless anxiety, had such a 
power that all through the following night even 
the sailors walking the deck trod softly, as if there 
might be danger in a heav}' footfall. All through 
the next two days the weather Avas fine and mes- 
sages passed freely to and from the shore. On 
land a somewhat similar anxiety prevailed and 
the coming of bad news was freely prophesied, 
for it was sagelv remarked by many that this was 
anew thing, and Mr. Field had never before laid 
an ocean cable. He was not used to it, trulv, but 
his long-tried faith was receiving an apparent jus- 
tification. 

There was no cloud upon it until Mondav 
evening, when they were over two hiuidrcd 
miles from shore ; but then, at about nine o'clock, 
the current ceased to work, without any assign- 
able cause. It was as if the hearts of men stood 
still while the electricians tried in vain.aeain and 



0TRU8 WEST FIELD 147 

again. Tt had nearly been decided to cut the 
cable and give it up, when suddenly the current 
came again, after an interruption of two and 
a half hours. The ships moved on again and all 
the hopes came back with the current, but before 
the dawn of day a worse thing came. The cable 
seemed to be running out with perilous freedom 
and the brakes were applied just as the stern of 
the Niagara arose from a deep wave-trough, and 
the strain was too great. The cable snapped and 
the voyage was ended, after three hundred and 
thirty miles of perfect success, more than one 
hundred of it in water over two miles deep. 

The fleet sailed back, and it was determined 
not to try again at once, but at least to wait for 
the construction of more perfect appliances, sug- 
gested by this first experience. The directors of 
the London companv seemed to be by no means 
disheartened, but ordered new cable to replace 
the lost piece and proposed to be ready for 
another attempt in 1858. 

Mr. Field soon returned to America, only to 
hear of the great financial panic of 1857. Tt had 
swept the country like a hurricane and his own 
fortune had suffered severely. He was not a 
bankrupt, but he was no longer a rich man. It 
had been a terrible year and it closed in the dark- 
ness of a great doubt, for the temporary confi- 
dence of the previous summer was all gone and 
in the minds and utterances of many men he was 
once more a mere visionary, following a will-o'- 
wisp. 

The first experiment had sunk a hundred thou- 



148 MEN OF BUSINESS 

sand pounds of the company's capital, and there 
was dithculty in replacing it; but this was done, 
and Mr. Field returned to England as general man- 
ager, after obtaining from President Buchanan's 
administration all the ships and co-operation 
asked for. Comparatively poor as he now was, 
he refused the compensation offered for his ser- 
vices, a thousand pounds, and worked without 
wages. 

The improvements of all kinds were many and 
important, but their very supervision gave Mr. 
Field several months of severe, unresting toil. 
The Susquehanna being detained in the West 
Indies by yellow fever on board, the British 
Government replaced her with the Valorous. 

This time the laying of the cable was to begin 
in mid-ocean, the two ships to meet, splice cable, 
and sail toward opposite shores. The cable 
squadron sailed from England June lo, 1858. 
Even in getting to the ocean rendezvous, terrific 
storms all but wrecked vessels so heavily and 
unmanageably laden, but on the 25th of June 
they were all together at the place appointed. 
Days had been consumed in repairing the conse- 
quences of the bad weather, but on the 26th the 
splice was made and the work began. It was 
only a beginning, for barely three miles of line 
were out before there was a hitch and a snap- 
ping. Three miles was no great loss. Another 
splice was made and another start. This time 
forty miles of cable ran out well and then the 
current ceased, no man ever knew why. It was 
disheartening, but that piece ot cable also was 



GYRUS WEST FIELD U9 

counted lost, the ships came back, the cable ends 
were joined, and a third time the messages ran 
well as the Niagara and Agamemnon slowly 
separated. On they sailed, and hope almost 
grew bright again, until they were about two 
hundred miles apart, and then it died. It was on 
the night of Tuesday, June 28th, that the current 
ceased. The cable had broken about twenty feet 
from the stern of the Agamemnon. Had the ves- 
sels been nearer each other, a new trial might 
have been made, but as it was, both gave it up 
and sailed back to England. 

The directors bravely determined to try again, 
but it was almost with the courage of despair 
that the needful preparations were made. So 
completely had other men abandoned the wild 
scheme that the cable fleet, when ready, steamed 
away without having any notice taken of their 
going. Even those on board the ships were 
dull and downcast. It was afterward said by 
those on the Niagara: "Mr. Field was the only 
man on board who kept up his courage through 
it all." 

It was on Thursday, July 29th, that a splice 
was made and laying cable began. That very 
evening the current ceased for a while, and all 
seemed lost, but it mysteriously returned and 
the work went on. The next day the Niagara's 
compasses went wrong on account of the mass of 
attraction on board, and she wandered out of her 
course until the British ship Gordon went ahead 
as guide. 

From that time onward there were checks and 



150 MEN OF BUSINESS 

anxieties one after another, with seemingly in- 
surmountable difficulties to overcome as they 
were met, with storms and contrary winds, with 
perils even from merchant ships that crossed the 
cable-laying course, one of them nearly running 
down the Niagara. All were passed, and on 
Thursday, August 4th, the Niagara anchored 
in Trinity Bay, Newfoundland, and the cable 
seemed to be laid, for the Agamemnon was 
already safe in Valentia Bay, Ireland. The next 
day, the 5th, Mr. Field sent a long despatch to 
the Associated Press, to suprise millions of 
people who had only heard of the first failures 
and had utterly given up any belief in him or his 
enterprise. 

There was a corresponding reaction in the 
minds of men. Cannon salutes were fired ; bells 
rang ; crowds cheered ; the news was received 
as that of one of the greatest victories ever won 
in peace, better than anv victorv won in war. 

There was much to be done upon the broken- 
down Newfoundland land lines before a through 
message could be sent. Mr. Field and a force 
went into the woods at once to make the repairs 
and then, although the cable was working well, 
the doubters began to deride again. 

The first message from shore to shore was 
from the English directors to the American : 
" Glory to God in the highest; on earth peace, 
good will toward men." The first through mes- 
sages, however (August i6th) were one from 
Queen Victoria to President Buchanan and the 
President's reply. Then the enthusiasm broke 



GYRUS WEST FIELD 151 

out again. The flags everywhere went up, the 
cannon thundered, and the church-bells rang 
clamorously, while the name of Mr. Field was 
greeted with boisterous cheering, as the hero of 
the hour, fit to be named with Franklin and 
Columbus. There seemed no limit and no ces- 
sation in the all but tumultuous rejoicings. 

On the evening of the 17th the city of New 
York was illuminated, there was a great torch- 
light procession of firemen, and a grand public 
reception in honor of Mr. Field and his asso- 
ciates, with the officers of the cable-ships. 

As Mr. Field was entering his carriage to at- 
tend the reception a despatch from the London 
directors was handed him, and on reaching the 
platform he at once stepped forward and read 
it to the enthusiastic assembly. 

The cheering was half frantic. It was the 
culmination of a triumph won at untellable cost, 
and yet it was the beginning of a long darkness, 
for that was the last message received over the 
cable of 1858. Down in the depths of the ocean 
some inexplicable blow had been given and 
something like a death had followed. 

Almost excessive as had been the outburst of 
rejoicing, the fever-heat of unexpected success, 
correspondingly bitter and unreasonable was the 
reversal and the harshness caused by disappoint- 
ment. It was freely asserted, against all evi- 
dence, that no messages had ever crossed the 
ocean and that Mr. Field had but engineered a 
stock-jobbing fravid. Bitter indeed was the cup 
held out to him, and all previous trials seemed as 



152 MEN OF BUSINESS 

notliini;- c<)nn)arc(l to this. E\-cn his brave asso- 
ciates in England and America were at last dis- 
ma3'ed, although they stood firmly by him and 
defended his personal character. This, indeed, 
was sustained, as men grew calmer, but his fort- 
une had disappeared and little seemed left ex- 
cept the ghost of a great failure. 

The real strength of the cable enterprise lay, 
after all, in the vast results which were attainable 
by its success. The British Government refused 
to give it up, although when applied to for large 
financial aid there were reasons tor hesitation. 
The following year, however, its Board of 
Trade appointed a committee of experts to in- 
vestigate the entire subject and report. 

Two years later (1861) this committee made an 
elaborate, somewhat bulkv but favorable report, 
but the times were out of joint for cable-laving. 
The American civil war was at its height, the 
relations between England and America were 
strained, and there were manv who declared 
that, for militar}- and political reasons, no cable 
should be permitted. President Lincoln and his 
Cabinet were wiser, for Mr. Seward, the cham- 
pion of Mr. Field in the Senate, was now 
Secretary of State. The real difficulty in the 
way was one of capital and it seemed for a while 
insuperable. In 1862 Mr. Field undertook to 
meet it in person. He visited Boston, Philadel- 
l)hia, Albany, Buffalo, calling together assemblies 
of merchants, bankers, and other business men, 
to address them on behalf of his project. They 
came, they received him well, but they gave him 



CVRUS WEST FIELD 



153 



no monc}'. In New York he addressed such 
bodies as the Stock Board, the Corn Exchange, 
and the Chamber of Commerce. It was all in 
vain until he went from man to man, asking for 
subscriptions to start again with, begging from 
door to door, until he obtained about seventy 
thousand pounds and could go once more to stir 




L.,yn,a 



intic Cable. 



up English liberality. He went and the prospect 
seemed good, for in August, 1864, the London 
directors advertised for proposals for a new 
cable. A number were made to them and one was 
so entirely satisfactory that Mr. Field returned 
hopefully to America. It was (jnly to wait for 
and receive news of delays which postponed the 
cable-laying one year more. 



154 MEN OF BUSINESS 

There had been man}- notable advances in cable- 
la villi;- since the great disappointment of 1858, bnt 
perhaps tne best of all was now made when the 
company secured control of the Great Eastern. 
She offered the essential element of steadiness in 
motion during the paying-out process. Even her 
vast hull, however, required a great deal of chang- 
ing and fitting up, and Mr. Field returned to 
England late in the spring of 1865 to find her not 
quite ready. The finances of the company, how- 
ever, were now in ver}- good condition, and all 
l>icliminaries were ended in good season. On 
the 23d of July the Great Eastern began her work, 
the shore end of the cable being alrcadv laid. 
Then, although all the paving-out machinery 
w(H-ked perfectlv, a new enemv was discovered. 
Only a few miles out from shore the electric 
tests indicated a fault, the cable was recovered 
to find it, and a small wire was discovered driven 
through its covering. A piece was taken out, a 
splice was made, the ship sailed on, and all went 
well until the 29th, when the same thing occurred 
again in deeper water, Avith greater difificultv in 
the recovery. It was now plain to all who ex- 
amined the matter that treachery had been at 
work, but none could imagine the agent. After 
that a closer watch was kept, and further mis- 
chiel was apparently out of the question. Twelve 
hundred miles of cable ran out perfectlv. Only 
six hundred more remained to be run. Two or 
three (.lays would bring thcni to Newfoundland. 
The pn)blem was solved, if it had not been for 
the breaking down of the too feeble machinery 



OYIiUS WEST FIELD 



155 



with which a discovered "fault." was hciiii^ at- 
tended to. The cable was fouled by the Great 
Eastern herself, snapped like a thread and went 
to the b(jttom. Days were spent in attempts to 
grapple and raise it, which failed only for lack ot 




Landing Shore End of the Cable at Heart's Content, Newfoundland. 



sufficiently strong apparatus, and then once more 
Mr. Field was carried back to England for a con- 
sultation with the directors. 

They again proved equal to the demand upon 
their perseverance. They ordered a new cable 
made with all improvements which could be de- 
vised. On the 13th of July, 1866, the Great East- 
ern again steamed out to sea with the new cable 



156 MEN OF BUSINESS 

passin^^ over her stern, and this time there was 
no failure to record. The current news of Europe 
came from hour to hour unceasingly. A war was 
raging between Austria, Prussia, and Italy, and 
the battle tidings reached the cabin of the Great 
Eastern, but when, on the 27th of July, Mr. Field 
went ashore to send a telegram announcing 
success, the latest news from the Old World 
was of peace declared between the contending 
powers. 

The land lines, long unused, required repairs, 
and Mr. Field went to work upon them, while 
the Great Eastern steamed away to grapple for 
and raise the lost cable of 1865. This was a se- 
vere task, but after several failures it was accom- 
plished in September. 

Public opinion at home and abroad turned in 
a great tide toward Mr. Field and honors were 
heaped upon him, while full justice wvis done to 
his British and American co-operators. He him- 
self for a time experienced a feeling of weariness, 
and was willing to rest if he could be permitted 
to do so. 

At a banquet given him by the New York 
Chamber of Commerce he expressed his own 
view of his achievement better than another could 
do it for him. He said : 

" It has been a long struggle. Nearly thirteen 
years of anxious watching and ceaseless toil. 
Often my heart has been ready to sink. Many 
times when wandering in the forests of New- 
foundland in the pelting rain, or on the decks of 
ships on dark, stormy nights alone far from home, 



CTRUS WEST FIELD 157 

I have almost accused myself of madness and 
folly, to sacrifice the peace of my family and all 
the hopes of life for what might prove, after all, 
but a dream. I have seen my companions, one 
and another, falling by my side, and feared that 
I might not live to see the end. And yet one 
hope has led me on, and I have prayed that T 
might not taste of death till this work was accom- 
plished. That prayer is answered, and now, be- 
yond all acknowledgments to men, is the feeling 
of gratitude to Almighty God." 

Time was required to recover from so long and 
severe a strain, but he was only forty-seven years 
of age, and he soon rallied. He had abundant stim- 
ulus, for he was now once more in affluence, and 
his separations from his family were ended, Con- 
gres-s gave him a vote of thanks and a gold medal. 
The Paris Exposition of 1867 gave him its highest 
honor, a gold medal. The King of Italy gave 
him the order of St. Mauritius. At every turn 
and on every appearance in public he was met 
by some hearty token of the universal apprecia- 
tion of his fidelity in that long struggle for the 
realization of a business man's dream. 

He did not at once engage in other undertak- 
ings, for there was much yet to be done in con- 
nection with the business affairs of the cable. In 
1869, however, he attended the formal opening of 
the Suez Canal as representative of the New York 
Chamber of Commerce, gratifying somewhat the 
early longing for travel which had led him to his 
tour in South America. 

On his return he took an active interest in 



158 MEN OF BUSINESS 

varied business affairs, being received wherever 
he went as one of his country's most distin- 
guished citizens. Most notable of all were his 
efforts for the development of the system of 
elevated railways of the city of New York, but 
their general control and management passed 
into other hands. 




Shore End of Cable — exact size. 

In 1874 Mr. Field's love of travel carried him 
to Iceland, accompanied by Bayard Taylor and 
Murat Halstead. In 1 880-1 he went around 
the world by way of San Francisco, the Pa- 
cific, Japan, China, India, and the Suez route 
home. 

It was at the end of another decade, after long 
rest in honor and prosperity, that Mr. and Mrs. 



CYRUS WEST FIELD 159 

Field, on December 2, 1890, celebrated their gol 
den wedding. 

It was almost the close of all. In the course 
ot 1 891 she faded from him, and other bereave- 
ments followed. His work was done and he, 
too, passed away July 12, 1892. To the very 
last his mind had been busy with varied under 
takings, among which was a concession which he 
had obtained for a Pacific cable, by way of the 
Sandwich Islands, to Asia. 

At the southern terminus ot Broadway there 
is a spot associated with all the earlier history 
of the city. It was separated only by a pa- 
rade-ground from the first rude fortification 
which defended the Dutch settlers from the In- 
dians, and which was replaced at a later day by 
the British Fort George. Here, at the out- 
break of the war for independence, were the 
headquarters of General Putnam, commanding 
the first American garrison of New York. It 
was and is " Number i Broadway," the very be- 
ginning of the town. It fronts upon the Bowl- 
ing Green, from which the angry patriots tore 
down the leaden equestrian statue of King 
George III. 

On this spot Mr. Field erected a vast office 
building, a kind of landmark, visible from far 
out on the Bay. He called it the " Washington," 
but most other men the " Field," Building. It 
is not, nor could any structure in brick and stone 
and iron become, nearly so enduring a monu- 
ment to his memory as is provided by the ocean 
cables which now, one after another, span the 



100 MKN OF BUSINESS 

Atlantic. It is more visible, however, and it 
may be pointed out as recording a business suc- 
cess which seemed to be won by a faith which 
did not fail with the faith of weaker men, but 
before which, at last, not a mountain, literally, 
but the sea, was overcome. 







Chauncey Mitchell Depew. 



VIII. 
CHAUNCEY MITCHELL DEPEW. 

It may be that the several nationalities, large 
and small, occupying the area described upon 
the maps as Europe, offer no other feature more 
remarkable than the distinctness of their con- 
tinued separation, after ages of neighborhood 
and intercourse. A sufficient example is given 
by the population of the British Isles, with 
Welsh, English, Scotch, and Irish elements blend- 
ing so slowly, generation after generation. 

In strong contrast with this Old World charac- 
teristic is the rapidity with which immigration 
to America from so many origins melts into the 
newly marked, composite American nationality. 
The new type presents its most perfect examples 
among the descendants of the earlier settlers, as 
a matter of course. These were, for the greater 
part, men and women of exceptional moral and 
mental capacity, as well as physical force. They 
laid a wonderfully good foundation for the new 
political building. They transmitted a better in- 
heritance than riches. The high qualities which 
fitted them to become the founders of a great 
nation are shown, undiminished, by a multitude 
of their descendants. One of these characteris- 
tics is the peculiar faculty for self-adaptation to 
11 



1G2 MEN OF BUSINESS 

new or changing circumstances. It is not so 
much versatility, however, as it is an inborn 
power of growth. 

On his mother's side, Chauncey Mitchell Depew 
is descended from the oldest and best colonial 
stock of New England. Roger Sherman, one of 
the signers of the DeclaraticMi of Independence, 
was Mrs. Martha INIitchell Depew's granduncle. 
The Depew family were French Huguenots, who 
fled to America upon the revocation of the Edict 
of Nantes in 1685. With others of their race and 
faith who had preferred exile to submission to 
tyranny, they made their first American home in 
Westchester County, New York. 

The entire country west of the Hudson, with 
the exception of the Mohawk Valley settlements, 
was at that time an unbroken wilderness. Fully 
half a century later the lands still occupied and 
firml}- held by the Six Nations extended to the 
river-bank above the Highlands. The very 
roughness of the Catskill Mountain country, 
however, offered exceptional protection from 
Indian raids to such little commimities as that 
which before long began at what has ever since 
been known as Peekskill. The majority of its 
earlier settlers were of Dutch extraction. Here, 
before the close of the seventeenth century, the 
Depew family acquired property, and soon after- 
ward built a dwelling so substantial that a part 
of it remains, included in the homestead standing 
to-day. 

It was in this old homestead that Chauncey M. 
Depew was born on April 23, 1834. Here he 



CHAUNGEY MITCHELL DEPEW 163 

passed the days of his boyhood and earlier youth, 
amid the splendid scenery of the American Rhine, 
surrounded by all the simple but solid advantages 
of what is, for many reasons, the best rural life in 
all the world. Of his home itself, aside from its 
substantial comfort, little more need be said than 
that its social as well as its religious tone were 
of a high order. It was a place for the develop- 
ment of self-respect ; for the formation of hrm 
principles ; for the acquisition of clear percep- 
tions of right and wrong. The family traditions 
were themselves important educational agents. 
Habits of industry and economy came as matters 
of course, for circumstances required them. 

There was, in like manner, a plain indication 
set before Chauncey from his childhood, that he 
must expect to make his own way in the world.. 
No other fortune could come to him than such 
as he might win for himself, and it is to his own 
success that he owes the fact of owning to-day 
the house in which he was born. 

It is not often that trustworthy indications of 
a boy's future attainments are to be discerned in 
his treatment of his first text-books. There were 
schools at Peekskill, and he was a regular attend- 
ant season after season ; but he was not, it is said, 
a distinguished young scholar, excepting on the 
ball-ground. He was also noted, moreover, as a 
fellow whom all the other fellows liked for the 
genial good-will and the endless fun they found 
in him. 

That he did not actually neglect his tasks is 
evident from the fact that in due season he pre- 



164: MEN OF BUSINESS 

pared for coUeo^e, entering- the freshman class at 
Vale in his eighteenth year. Somewhat the 
same features were to be found in the history of 
his college course, but his time at Yale was in no 
respect wasted. The vigorous, athletic, fun- 
loving boy was developing into a man with a 
strength and independence of character, very 
imperfectly understood at first by the already 
long list of men who liked him. There are, in- 
deed, very many who fail to sec how strong an 
element is genuine " geniality " in the difficult art 
of controlling or directing others. 

Mr, Depew was graduated in 1856, and entered 
at once the law office of Hon. William Nelson, in 
Peekskill. It was a time of intense political fer- 
mentation, and party spirit was at fever-heat. Of 
the old political organizations, the Whig party 
seemed to be passing away. It had become a 
form without life. The Democratic party, while 
seemingly all-powerful, was rent by factions. 
Outside of both, as well as nominally within them, 
were important political elements, especially in 
the Northern States, which onlv required gather- 
ing and shaping to constitute an entirely new 
party. The processes of this combination were 
at work, and in 1856. at the Pittsburg " mass-meet- 
ing" and at the Philadelphia convention which 
followed it, the People's party, soon to be known 
as the Republican party, began to take its nota- 
ble part in the history of the nation. 

Mr. Depew's political career began with the 
life of his party. A young law student just out 
of college, he entered the campaign of 1S56 with 



CHAUNCET MITCHELL DEPEW 165 

enthusiasm, and his abiUty as a stump-speaker at 
once attracted attention. The party candidates, 
Fremont and Dayton, were not elected. Few ot 
their supporters had expected so much as that, 
but a great success was won in carrying eleven 
States, with one hundred and fourteen votes in the 
electoral college. Mr. Depew went back to his 
law books, and two years later, in 1858, he was 
admitted to the bar, in the very heat of another 
political campaign. He gained a prominence 
which brought him, in i860, a nomination to the 
State Assembly. It was the famous " Lincoln 
campaign," so sharply, ably contested, with such 
fierce excitements in every corner of the country, 
and with such tremendous consequences almost 
visible in the immediate future. During the 
canvass, Mr. Depew did not confine himself to 
the Hudson River districts, but spoke at many 
points throughout the State, winning a rare ora- 
torical reputation for so very young a speaker. 

He was elected, and he took his seat in the 
Legislature, but not to disappear among the 
clever mob of young assemblymen in the some- 
what customary way of newly fledged politicians. 
It was a time when all the interests of the com- 
monwealth, as of the nation itself, were calling 
loudly for men of courage, energy, and capacity. 
The sudden exigencies of the civil war threw 
upon the Legislature, composed largely of new 
men, duties for which its membership, young or 
old, had no previous preparation. The attitude 
and action of the Empire State were of vital 
importance to all other States. She was to raise 



1C() MEN OF BUSINESS 

and forward more troops than any other, and she 
held the keys of finance. There were endless 
qnestions both of law and of prudence requiring- 
prompt solution by her legislators. Timidities, 
vacillations, criticisms, and even treacheries and 
unconcealed disloyalties were to be dealt with 
from day to day. There were many good and 
able men in that Assembly of i860. How deep 
a mark must have at once been made, therefore, 
by the young member from Peekskill, by his ad- 
mirable mastery of the complex public business 
brought before him, may be gathered from the 
fact that when, two years later, he was re-elected, 
he was speedily made Chairman of the Committee 
of Ways and Means. This is distinctively the 
business men's committee of any American legis- 
lative body. He also was elected to serve as 
Speaker of the House, pro tcin. That Mr. 
Depew's usefulness during his first term was 
appreciated outside of the Assembly chamber 
appears from the fact of his re-election at a time 
when his party was suffering many disasters. 
His success as Chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee, and as, by that fact, leader of the 
House on the Republican side, was also pointed- 
Xy recognized, for, at the expiration of his term, 
he was tendered a public banquet by leading 
citizens of New York City. He was soon to be 
given a yet more striking assurance of the esti- 
mate placed upon him, for the next State con- 
vention made him the Republican candidate for 
Secretary of State. 

The bodily toughness which had marked Mr. 



GHAUNOET MITCHELL DEPEW 167 

Depew in his schoolboy and college days had 
again attracted attention, during the exhausting 
days and nights of prolonged Assembly sessions 
and frequent committee meetings. It was now 
to undergo a test of more than ordinary severity. 
The political campaign of 1863 was in many re- 
spects remarkable. It was not a Presidential 
campaign, in which all men are accustomed to 
take an interest. There was not any State ques- 
tion of importance before the people. The popu- 
larity or otherwise of individual candidates had 
little to do with its course at the outset. It was 
a campaign which turned upon national issues, 
and which was to prepare beforehand for the 
Presidential contest of the next year, 1864. Mr. 
Depew was called upon to stand forth as an ad- 
vocate vindicating the Lincoln administration, on 
trial for failure. It was as if he were a champion 
defending defeat, for the people were weary un- 
to sickness of heart of the long war, the burden- 
some taxes, and the exacting demands for more 
men and more money. What was called the 
"conscription," the Draft Act, was taking men 
and making soldiers of them, whether they would 
or not, and there had been not only grumblings, 
but terribly bloody riots in opposition. There 
had been great victories, truly, during the sum- 
mer, but these were as yet credited to the ac- 
count of the generals and the army. The Repub- 
lican party was declared to have no part in 
them. 

During six successive weeks Mr. Depew ad- 
dressed large gatherings of the people, at prom- 



168 MEN OF BUSINESS 

inent points throughout the State. He spoke 
every day, and often twice in a day, with mar- 
vellous power and effect. The result was phe- 
nomenal. He was elected by a majority of thirty 
thousand, running far ahead of his ticket, and 
the cloud of popular disaffection seemed to have 
rolled away. The next year, in the campaign 
for the re-election of President Lincoln he took 
an active part, but there was no need for another 
such exhibition of extraordinary powers of phy- 
sical endurance. 

With the death of the great President, in the 
spring of 1865, and the accession of Andrew 
Johnson, a change took place in the relations of 
many men to national politics, and Mr. Depew 
was among them. There was an appearance of 
political chaos, of which no man could foresee 
the outcome, the future condition, and he will- 
ingly turned his attention once more to the ex- 
clusive practice of his profession. 

But for the rapidly changing relations between 
President Johnson and the leaders of the Repub- 
lican party, Mr. Depew would have been Col- 
lector of the Port of New York. One Sunday 
morning President Johnson sent for the two 
Senators from New York, Ira Harris and Edwin 
D. Morgan, and for Thurlow Weed and Henry 
J. Raymond. It was at a turning-point in Amer- 
ican political history. During the conference 
the President said : " I have appointed Chauncey 
M. Depew Collector of New York," and showed 
them the commission, already signed, and the 
message to the Senate which was to accompany 



OHAUNCET MITCHELL DEPEW 169 

it, lying' on liis table. He requested Senator 
Morgan to call at the Treasury next morning, 
Monday, and obtain the completed commission. 
The conference ended, Monday morning- came, 
but the message of appointment was not sent to 
the Senate. A friend of the President had 
counselled him that, if Mr, Depew should be 
made Collector, and if then the veto of the Civil 
Rights Bill should be overridden in the Senate, 
the administration would be left without follow- 
ing or power in New York. The commission 
was therefore held until Wednesday and was 
then cancelled, because Senators Morgan and 
Harris had firmly sustained the bill and carried 
it over the Presidential veto. An appointment as 
Minister to Japan was actually given Mr. Depew, 
and there were strong reasons in favor of its 
acceptance, but, after thoughtful consideration, 
he returned the tempting commission. He al- 
ready had received suggestions of important 
affairs soon to be placed in his hands, but could 
hardly have imagined the breadth or fruitfulness 
of his new field of labor. Here ended, however, 
for a time, his activities as a political party 
leader. Not at any time, nevertheless, has he 
ceased to exemplify his own strongly ex})resscd 
doctrine that public affairs have a first claim upon 
the thoughtful care of every American citizen. 
As an illustration, he even served one term as a 
Tax Commissioner for the city of New York. 

The new field now tendered was itself some- 
thing that required a process of creation. It was 
a growth as well as a construction, and a number 



170 MEN OF BUSINESS 

of capable men grew with it. Among them, from 
the beginning, was Mr. Depew, That really 
great business man, Cornelius Vanderbilt, was 
endowed with rare capacity for estimating other 
men. He selected with almost unerring saga- 
city the associates who were to work with 
him in carrying out his plans. He had retained 
many good lawyers before the year 1866, and he 
knew the value of every man among them. He 
was now about to enter upon a long campaign, 
of unsurpassed magnitude and consequences, 
and he was carefully choosing his company. 

The practice of law is itself a school for the con- 
tinual study of varied affairs, and the successful 
practitioner must make himself familiar with a 
wide range of subjects, of every kind and grade. 
He can hardly fail to have excellent capacity for 
business management. Now, however, there 
was need for a man of first-class ability as a 
lawyer, and who had also proved himself capable 
of growing, of expanding to meet the severest 
requirements, and such men are not numerous. 
Versatility, readiness, endurance were essential, 
even more than deep learning. The Commodore's 
previous searches for the man he wanted are 
said to have been more than once disappointed. 
In 1886, however, he decided that Mr. Depew 
was the right man to appoint as attorney for the 
New York & Harlem Railroad Company. He 
was himself its president — that is, its dictator — 
and it was to be the entering wedge for his vast 
plan of railway combination. 

Two years which followed might, perhaps, be 



CHAUNGEY MITCHELL DEPEW 171 

described as a kind of trial trip, for up to the 
date of his appointment Mr. Depew's knowledge 
of railways and their working had been mainly 
that of a passenger. He was henceforth to be 
in nearly every-day consultation with a man who 
almost intolerantly expected from others some- 
thing like his own intimate and thorough ac- 
quaintance with mechanical details, construction, 
trade, traffic, and transportation. Associated with 
them were experts in every department, men of 
lifelong training, but not one of them knew more 
than was necessary to meet the requirements of 
the Commodore. They would, however, have 
been quick to discover any defect in the mental 
equipment of the counsel selected by their ar- 
bitrary chief. If they found any, both he and 
they were also compelled to take note of the 
plain, common-sense boundary line established 
by Mr. Depew, beyond which merely technical 
acquirements were not to be expected of him. 

The railways already connecting New York 
City with the great lakes and the commerce 
of the West had been built piecemeal. Those 
within the State and in relation with the Hudson 
River and the Erie Canal numbered nearly a 
dozen distinct corporations. Seven of these had 
united to form the New York Central Railroad 
Company, to the great advantage of all con- 
cerned. The Commodore had planned a union 
of this and the river lines, in a combination which 
should then reach its long arm and grasping 
hand half-way across the continent. His next 
advance, in 1869, required a watchful counsellor, 



172 MEN OF BUSINESS 

for it made one concern of the river roads and 
the central line, under the name of the New 
York Central cSl Hudson River Railroad Com- 
pany. The opposition, in every form and method, 
was of the most strenuous description, and the 
criticism passed upon Mr. Depew's management 
of his own share in the campaign was his ap- 
pointment as attorney for the new organization. 

With the achievement of his primary success, 
new questions arose and numberless difficulties 
presented themselves. Every mile of track was ex- 
amined and was declared defective. The bridges, 
depots, engines, cars, repair-shops, the system of 
employment, all were inspected, reformed, or 
rather renewed and increased. Actual recon- 
struction work did not come to the hands of Mr. 
Depew, but there were endless questions of law 
involved, and he was under the necessity of 
being prepared upon every point to encounter 
able, adverse counsel in any court. State or 
national. That he might do so successfuUv de- 
manded of him a kind of general knowledge of 
railway business, which began with a rail-spike 
or a passenger's grip-sack and ended before the 
Supreme Court. It was to be acquired, from 
hour to hour, amid all the confusion and press- 
ure of a movement which shortly crossed the 
western boundary of the State and set out for 
Chicago. 

The Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the 
Michigan Central, and other roads soon belonged 
to the new system, under one central manage- 
ment. With them came vast questions related 



CHAUNGEY MITCHELL DEPEW 173 

to railway and lake transportation, permanently 
affecting the national welfare. Some of them 
were also international, for the lines of transit 
were, for long reaches, as if they were the 
American frontier, while at some points the 
Canadian border seemed to have been carried 
away by rail. 

It was at this point that one of Mr. Depew's 
distinguishing characteristics, always in opera- 
tion, began to be better discerned and appre- 
ciated. The new combination necessarily con- 
tained within itself many interests, individual or 
corporate. It also came into contact, which 
might easily be also collision, with a large num- 
ber of local interests, municipal or otherwise, 
chartered or unchartered. Other lines of east 
and west railway were offering competition, 
sometimes wholesome, sometimes profitless or 
absolutely pernicious. With reference to all 
these it was discovered that the right man held 
in his own hands, by appointment, what may be 
described as the diplomacy of justice, cordially 
exercised, and with it the peculiar faculty for 
adjustment, which aided so many strong and 
positive-tempered men to pull well together. It 
was distinctly an administrative faculty, and it 
grew to ripeness in a school of its perpetual ex- 
ercise, as Mr. Depew became counsel of road 
after road, and met, upon occasion after occasion, 
the captious representatives of many and divers 
interests. 

With many other sagacious leaders of his 
party, Mr. Depew had disapproved of several 



174 MbJX OF BUSINESS 

features oi its management in 1865-6. How 
sharp had been his disapproval was not generally 
understood. Few men will now, however, deny 
the justice of the criticisms to which the party 
subjected itself in the heat of the Johnson im- 
peachment controversy. Nevertheless, there 
could be no better proof of the completeness with 
which the absorbing duties of a railway business 
man had withdrawn him from a study of party 
affairs than he gave in 1872. He permitted him- 
self to be apparently drawn into the curiously 
futile " Independent party " Democratic nom- 
ination of Horace Greeley lor President, and 
allowed his name to be used as a candidate for 
Lieutenant-Governor of New York. It was the 
most unbusinesslike political enterprise in the 
history of American politics. It had neither 
sufficient capital, proper organization, cashier, 
chief clerk, nor managing partner. It was well 
enough advertised, but it failed, as a matter of 
course, and all its membership returned to any 
other occupation they might have. It is strictly 
correct to say that in his relations to this brief 
episode Mr. Depew did nc^t really re-enter poli- 
tics. It is needless to speculate upon any results 
of an impossible success, placing in office men 
who had no permanent party behind them and 
would have been compelled to make one. There 
were other and seemingly better uses which 
came to him as if he were a magnet that attracted 
them. In 1874 he was made a regent of the 
Univci-sitv of New York, and his deep interest 
in educational development was manifested by 



CHAUNGEY MITCHELL DEPEW 175 

the fidelity and ability with which he attended 
to the duties of that position. He was also, for 
a time, a member of the commission in charge of 
the new State capitol building at Albany, but 
personal supervision, so much needed, was 
simply impossible to a man already so fully 
occupied. 

Railways came into the Vanderbilt combina- 
tion fast enough, as the positive benefits of its 
system extended through the West and North- 
west, while it joined, almost to unifications, with 
lines that reached onward to the Pacific. 

With all, and from the beginning, came yet 
another subject which cannot henceforth be 
ignored by any American man of business. It 
may be imperfectly described as the labor and 
employment question. Great railways are also 
great manufacturers. Besides their train-hands 
and freight-passers of all sorts, they employ me- 
chanics of many grades and of widely varied 
specialties. Success in management, therefore, 
requires a thorough understanding of the inter- 
ests and even the opinions of the workmen. This 
also involves a study and comprehension of deep- 
lying social problems, some of which have been 
imported with the constantly increasing Euro- 
pean labor element, with its rooted prejudices 
and its dense ignorance. Here, therefore, was 
and is a peculiar field of administration for a 
genius of justice in adjustment. It was after 
a while to be given to Mr. Depew in a much 
greater fulness. 

During all these years he was steadily increas- 



176 MEN OF BUSINESS 

ing, in case after case, his already high reputa- 
tion as a lawyer, but his triumphs before the 
courts could have been won, perhaps, by learned 
jurists altogether incompetent to deal with a 
sliding scale of multiform rights, demands, or 
even possible delusions. The politics of the pres- 
ent and, much more, the future, begin to assume 
new shapes at about this line. The entire labor 
element of the United States is cut up into par- 
ties, organized and unorganized, of which all 
railway managers are necessarily members, how- 
ever they may seem to be in opposition. The 
brake belongs to the train which it pulls up at the 
station. 

Another side of Mr. Depew's versatile capacity 
had not by any means been permitted to rust. 
From his boyhood he had exhibited social facul- 
ties of a high order. It was not merely that he 
could make an unsurpassed address or after-din- 
ner speech. It was that at all times and places 
he had perfected a natural power for so meeting 
men and women that they went away from him 
with a pleased, if not a grateful, sensation of hav- 
ing been made to feel so entirely at ease concern- 
ing themselves. It is a process which the most 
skilful flatterer cannot perform, for the secret 
of it is its genuine good-will, its kindly regard 
for the feelings of others. Customers will flock 
to the store of any man who is known to distin- 
guish himself in this manner, and it is an exceed- 
ingly valuable addition to the equipment of any 
man in any business. 

The nature of Mr. Depew's criticisms upon the 



CHAUNGET MITCHELL DEPEW 177 

management of his own party, no less than his 
personal popularity, pointed him out as the 
most available candidate for one of the United 
States Senatorships made vacant, in 1881, by the 
resignations of Senators Roscoe Conkling and 
Thomas C. Piatt. During the long, hotly con- 
tested struggle which followed in the State Leg- 
islature, in joint sessions of Senate and House, 
Mr. Depew steadily gained votes until, on one 
ballot, he required but ten more for an election. 
Such might indeed have been the result but for 
a blow which fell upon the party and the nation 
like a stroke of lightning. More and more bitter 
had grown the animosities of the contending fac- 
tions on the Republican side of the contest at 
Albany, while the Democrats, a numerical mi- 
nority, stood firmly by their own candidates, Fran- 
cis C. Kiernan and John C. Jacobs. Into the 
strife and turmoil came flashing, on the 2nd of 
July, a telegraphic announcement of the assas- 
sination of President Garfield by Guiteau. In an 
instant all was quiet. It was a time for all men 
to turn toward peace and unity. Mr. Depew 
withdrew his name ; a party caucus was held ; 
Hon. Warner Miller was nominated and a few 
days later he was elected. So terminated a strug- 
gle which had lasted during eighty-two days. 

It was notable, during this memorable episode, 
how often an attempt was made to employ 
against Mr. Depew the fact that he was a rail- 
way man, in alliance with the great capitalists of 
the country, and how uniformly the reply was 
made in substance : " He is so, and he is the 
13 



178 MEN OF BUSINESS 

one man in the United States against whom the 
workin_^men will not raise that as an objection. 
They would regard him as their own represen- 
tative in the Senate." 

Long beiore the death of Commodore Vander- 
bilt, which took place in 1877, his son, William 
H. Vanderbilt, nominally as vice-president, had 
been the dictator of the New York Central & 
Hudson River Railroad Company with its imme- 
diate connections. On the death of his father 
he became president, Mr. Depew retaining his 
old position, holding also a directorship in that 
and several other railway corporations. In 
1882 Mr. William H. Vanderbilt resigned and 
Mr. James H. Rutter became president, Mr. 
Depew taking the post of second vice-president. 
In 1885 Mr. Rutter died, and Mr. Depew Avas at 
once chosen in his place. 

Perhaps it was worthy of notice that so im- 
portant a fact was accepted by the Stock Ex- 
change and the business world as a foregone 
conclusion. There was hardly a ripple, so well 
was it understood that there would be no jar in 
the financial running of the greatest railway in- 
terest on earth. It was safe in the hands of 
trained experts, with a head whose qualifications 
were not only known to them, leading to his 
selection by them, but also well known and ap- 
proved by other men. 

About a year earlier, in 1884, a Republican 
Legislature had been called upon to choose a 
United States Senator. Prior to holding a for- 
mal caucus, Mr. Depew's acknowledged relations 



CHAUNCEY MITCHELL BE PEW 179 

to the party in his own State were indicated by 
a sufficiently definite offer of the nomination, 
equivalent to an election. In view of his other 
duties and obligations he refused to be a candi- 
date and Hon. William M. Evarts was chosen 
instead. 

Year after year has gone by since then, with a 
manifest solidification, so to speak, of the position 
so steadily grown into through the exercise of 
bvisiness qualities which have hardly been sub- 
jected to criticism. The vast machinery of the 
railway management works with wonderful ease, 
in admirable adjustment. The exceedingly great 
ability of the membership of its central man- 
agement may well be accepted as offering the 
strongest possible tribute to the special capacity 
of the man they have placed at the head of 
their corporation. The outside community may 
accept their reiterated verdict. 

Nevertheless, other declarations of confidence 
have been made. In the Republican National 
Convention, held at Chicago in 1888, Mr. Depew 
received the solid vote of New York, seventy 
votes, as the party nominee for President, his 
total vote being ninety-nine. Very rarely has 
the Empire State delegation been a unit in favor 
of a Presidential candidate. During the prepa- 
rations for the Republican National Convention 
of 1892, at Chicago, there seemed to be but one 
important element of uncertainty as to the result 
of its deliberations. Almost at the last moment 
this was increased by the unexpected resignation, 
by the veteran statesman, the old-time leader of 



180 MEN OF BUSINESS 

the party, James G. Blaine, of the portfolio of Sec- 
retary of State in President Harrison's Cabinet. 
Mr. Depew had intended taking an active part 
in the coming canvass and was acting as leader 
of the New York delegation at Chicago. He 
had entertained no thought of public office up 
to the moment when he was offered by the Presi- 
dent the high honor of the first place in the Cab- 
inet vacated by Mr. Blaine. It could not be put 
awa}^ hastily, nor accepted at all without possi- 
ble injustice to existing claims upon his services. 
A few days, not more than a week, however, 
sufficed for consideration, and the brilliant offer 
was declined. The general public and the press 
were not taken into consultation, but the fact of 
the offer and refusal requires record. It is one 
more proof of the growth and strength of char- 
acter-forces greater than any mere personal am- 
bition. In the convention, by ballot and other- 
wise, and in many responsive utterances all over 
the country, Mr. Depew was indicated as being 
himself an exceedingly probable candidate for 
the Presidential nomination. 

During the Presidential canvass he heartily sus- 
tained the renomination of President Harrison. 

There is little to be gained by attempts to 
analyze more closely a business success and 
a personal popularity obtained so very direct- 
ly through means so commonly understood. 
Speeches and addresses almost numberless 
have given Mr. Depew his foremost place as 
an orator. Endless papers and printed letters 
of all sorts have established another kind of rep- 



CHAUNGEY MITCHELL DEPEW 181 

utaticjii. His powerful influence has been given 
with all vigor against every form of vice, disoi"- 
der, violence, or injustice. He has always been 
a declared enemy of intemperance and an oppo- 
nent of irreligion. One more point of character 
has gradually made itself known somewhat to 
the surprise of many men. It is that in all his 
toils and achievements he has regarded money- 
making as a secondary consideration. Wealth, 
but not excessive, has come to him along with 
his successes, and much of it has been expended 
liberally. He has, however, performed all duties 
simply as duties, and has transacted multiform 
business for its own sake. Not many men have 
done more or harder work of kinds to which 
no idea of compensation attached. Even his 
performance of public duties of a social nature 
has been often severely exacting. He was pres- 
ident of the Union League Club during seven 
years, and was then elected an honorary member. 
He was president of the Yale Alumni Association 
two years. He is also president of the " Sons of 
the American Revolution," and has given the aid 
of his presence and his welcome eloquence at an 
endless list of banquets, anniversaries, and other 
gatherings of his fellow-citizens. There has, in- 
deed, been a very complete, well-rounded growth 
and development of original capacities, no mat- 
ter what these were, that could enable any man 
to perform so well so wide a variety of impor- 
tant functions. It would not be easy to point 
out another business success more universally 
acknowledged. 



IX. 

ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART. 

The great majority of men are born in a field 
of action which they accept as sufficient for 
them. The world of human life, however, has 
been advanced from its old places to its new by 
the men who went out and found or made some- 
thing more than, and differing much from, the 
narrowness in which they began. Of both classes 
it is true, nevertheless, that the success attained 
bv each individual has been very nearly meas- 
ured by his or her perception of the nature and 
requirements of the situation. It is a truth which 
ma}' be expi-essed in shop terms by saying that 
the lumber-rooms of innumerable failures are 
choked with unsalable stock, of stuff unsuited to 
the possible market or for which all demand Imd 
died away. On the other hand, the list of success- 
es, in almost every department of human efTort, 
presents, in endless repetition, illustrations of the 
genius of perception. It is a genius which never 
takes coals to Newcastle, nor struggles vainly 
with the obvious drift of the current it is in. It 
may not be the genius of the explorer or of the 
inventor, but it is the absolute need of the suc- 
cessful merchant or shop-keeper. No better ex- 
ample could be asked for than is supplied by the 



ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART 183 

business lile and success ol Alexander Turney 
Stewart. He was born in Belfast, Ireland, Oc- 
tober 12, 1803. As his name indicates, he was of 
Scotch descent, and his family claimed the right 
to the heraldic "arms" of the Stewarts. His 
father, a farmer in moderate circumstances, pro- 
posed to give his son a liberal education, with a 
view to the ministry of the Church of England. 
The earlier days of the future merchant were 
therefore passed among books and tutors, and 
here educational seed was sown which bore much 
fruit in later years. 

While he was away from home, at school, his 
father died, leaving him under the care of a 
guardian, with means for the completion of the 
proposed course of study. One thing, however, 
speedily became manifest to the boy himself. 
Whatever was the parental ambition, the son 
had not been destined by nature for the minis- 
try. While his habits and tendencies were mor- 
ally correct, he was eager for the great world of 
enterprise and had no inclination for the quiet 
life of a clergyman. So he told his guardian, and 
that gentleman saw good reasons for agreeing 
with him. 

No idea was entertained of entering the 
choked-up channels of the Old World, when the 
new was holding out its continual invitation, 
but it was upon an exploring expedition, alto- 
gether, that young Stewart sailed for America 
in 1823. He was only twenty years of age; he 
had as yet no business training that anybody 
knew of; but only he himself knew how many 



1S4 MEN OF BUSINESS 

thiii<;-s related to trade and ti-alfic he had studied, 
better than his books, while making up his mind 
to be a merchant. 

On reaching New York, with no money to 
waste, he found a cit}- wdiich required a pretty 
thorough inyestigation before determining what 
to do with it. It was reached in the summer, 
and the arrival of autumn found the commercial 
student acting as a temporar}'^ teacher in a re- 
spectable private school on Roosevelt Street, 
near Pearl. It was of some importance that this 
was then a fashionable part of the citv and that 
hours out of school could be spent in scouting 
expeditions through all the other streets, to dis- 
cover the localities of business interests and how 
and where they were moving. 

It was not difficult to perceive that the exten- 
sion of retail trade, much more than of wholesale 
transactions, was already governed topographi- 
cally. It would be more so in the future, for the 
long, irregular area of Manhattan Island was 
marked, centrally, by a street which was almost 
like a backbone, from which the others radiated. 
Shorter streets, like Pearl and its neighbors, 
away down the island, must be deserted by fash- 
ionable shoppers in due season, and the trade of 
the next generation would be done largely ahmg 
Broadwa}'. This, even at its lower end and 
almost entirely above the City Hall, was as vet 
a street of residences. 

Mr. Stewart's owq year as a teacher came to 
an end and he returned to spend his vacation in 
Ireland. In October foUowiuir he became of ayfe 



ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART 185 

and his i^iiardian was ready to transfer to him all 
that remained of the inheritance. The amount 
was not large, but time was required for settle- 
ments and cash returns, during which certain 
mercantile selections could be circumspectly 
made. Much care had been given, therefore, to 
the character of the stock of Belfast laces and 
linens shipped to New York by Mr. Stewart in 
the summer of the year 1825. He was able to 
make a beginning by offering goods of undenia- 
ble quality and at unquestionably fair prices, in 
marked contrast with what he had perceived as 
the most hurtful vice of the retail trade. It was 
an imported evil, but its existence rendered 
"shopping "a tedious process of beating down 
prices, the seller asking, habitually, more than 
was expected of a bargaining customer, and 
deeming it a shop-keeper's triumph to work off 
inferior or out-of-date goods. The contrast so 
declared and maintained was an important ad- 
vertisement, although a host of lady shoppers 
rebelled vivaciously against the iron rule which 
prevented them from having any reduction given 
them at Stewart's. 

The keen business perception which led him 
to prepare in advance for the character he in- 
tended to establish was coupled with another 
which drew upon him caustic criticisms and also 
the attention of all the people who believed his 
store to be too far up-town, if not on the wrong 
street. It was only a narrow-faced affair, at No. 
283 Broadway, fronting City Hall Park, and all 
the dry-goods concerns of any importance were 



186 MEN OF BUSINESS 

far below. Some of tlie largest were on Cedar 
Street. The rent of the store was only $250 per 
annum, and in obtaining a lease Mr. Stewart 
gave as his reference a responsible citizen named 
Jacob Clinch, whose friendship he had acquired 
while teaching school. Not a great while after- 
ward he married Cornelia, the daughter of his 
first endorser. 

The first stock was valued at but little over 
three thousand dollars, but a very attractive 
show was made with it, and other lines of goods 
were added rapidly. A hit had been made, and 
it was a surprise to all observers that the young 
Scotch-Irish adventurer's business grew as it did. 
Of course, importers and wholesalers were will- 
ing to place fabrics in a store where they sold so 
well. On the other hand, buyers accustomed to 
chafTer put away their irritation on account of 
Stewart's rules when they discovered how abso- 
lutely safe it was to deal with him. He would 
not offer anything at a shade above its intrinsic 
value upon the existing market. At the same 
time, if the market itself should go down, the price 
would follow it, and the reverse process might 
promptly be taken advantage of. 

Only one year passed before the small place at 
No. 283 became too small. It had been only 
a large front room with a smaller in the rear, 
where the proprietor slept at night. In 1826 a 
larger store was secured at No. 262 Broadway, 
and this was still " away up-town." 

From this time onward the career of Mr. 
Stewart was simply that of an admirable sales- 



ALEXANDER TL'HNEY STEWART 187 

man, instructing and employing other salesmen 
as he could obtain the right sort of young men. 
His unsurpassed faculty in this direction paral- 
leled his apparently prophetic forecast of the 
probable demands of purchasers. As time went 
on he added a rare capacity for creating or di- 
recting the very demand which he proposed to 
supply, and he did not always permit other deal- 
ers to avail themselves of a knowledge of his 
plans or expectations. 

The retail business widened until wholesaling 
came as a matter of course, but as enhancing 
rather than diminishing the importance of the 
retail department. During a prolonged period, 
in which the tendency of all business was to form 
specialties, Mr. Stewart's house was pointed at 
as the marked exception, for it offered, wholesale 
and retail, whatever could be worn upon the per- 
son or used in dress, excepting the ready-made 
clothing of men. An incongruous article or per- 
son would at once have disappeared after his 
keen eye had fallen upon it. Nothing could 
escape his searching inspection, as he quietly 
strolled hither and thither, now and then paus- 
ing to give a low-voiced bit of direction, eco- 
nomical in words and sure of implicit obedience. 
The past, present, and future of his stock in trade 
walked around with him, and his knowledge of 
details was something extraordinary. 

At an early day — for he had begun by import- 
ing his own goods — Mr. Stewart became a heavy 
impoi"ter, having direct relations with important 
concerns in various parts of the world ; but this 



188 MEN OF BUSINESS 

did not satisfy him, for even the manufacturers 
who supplied the importers did not always pro- 
vide the precise articles his own judgment indi- 
cated. He became, therefore, a manufacturer on 
his own account, and could place upon the New 
York market unique lines of fabrics which could 
not be duplicated by any other house. 

There was something like an aim at monopoly 
in this, as well as in other features of Mr. Stew- 
art's policy, but the real animus was rivalry rather 
than monopoly. This was repeatedly manifested 
in his sharp collisions with competing houses, for 
some of these battles were exceedingly costly 
and without much prospect of other reward 
than barren victory. This, too, was not always 
won, for there were many daring and capable 
merchants among his competitors. 

Mr. Stewart's accrued profits from year to year 
now amounted to large sums, and once more he 
proved the accuracy of his judgment concerning 
the development of the city. No other man ever 
bought so many old churches, as their congre- 
gations parted with them to build new ones " up- 
town." No other man in America ever owned 
so many hotels at the same time, and his were 
not only in New York City, but at Saratoga and 
elsewhere. His general purchases of real estate 
were large, but the most important of all were 
made with direct reference to the future of his 
own business. The first notable result came in 
1848. Piece after piece, year after year, Mr. 
Stewart quietl}^ bought the entire front on Broad- 
way, between Chambers and Reade Streets. Ad- 



ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART 



189 



joining property on those streets was also ab- 
sorbed until the holders took warning and put 
up their prices to exorbitant figures. He had 
enough, however, and on the land acquired he 
built the huge marble structure now standing 
there. At first it was sufficient for his entire 




The Wholesale Store of A. T. Stewart & Co., built in \l 



business, but afterward was surrendered to the 
wholesale department. It is now an "office 
building." 

Hardly had the new dry-goods palace been oc- 
cupied, in 1848, before Mr. Stewart himself de- 
clared that it was a mistake. It would answer 
for a while, but it was too far down town. It 
did indeed " answer," and year after year it was 



100 mh;x of business 

a terminus or objective point to be reached by 
fashionable and unfashionable shojipers, but the 
pilg-rimages required to reach it grew longer and 
longer, as its builder had foreseen, and its useful- 
ness as a " five-story salesroom " passed awav. 

It was while this structure was in progress, in 
1846, that the famine in Ireland appealed to the 
charities of Americans. Mr. Stewart sent over 
a ship-load of provisions, instructing his agents 
to return with a ship-load of immigrants. Thev 
were to select respectable persons, able to read 
and write, and to give them free transportation 
to America. The somewhat hard and calculating 
spirit of the successful merchant showed itself. 
even in the charity. He would have preferred 
that the entire European immigration to Amer- 
ica shoidd be selected upon principles parallel 
A\ith those which governed his own offerings of 
fabrics. 

In a similarlv kindly spirit, and without re- 
serve, he sent a ship-load of flour to France, after 
the disastrous war with Germany. 

Another liberality brought to public notice Mr. 
Stewart's strong personal objection to having 
his portrait taken. Prince Bismarck sent his 
own photograph to the American merchant- 
prince, requesting an exchange, but received in- 
stead a check for fifty thousand francs for the 
sufferers by recent floods in Silesia, and the in- 
formation that Mr. Stewart had invariably re- 
fused to sit before a camera. 

Among financiers, bankers, and merchants of 
every name his credit stood deservedly high 



ALEXANDER TUllNEY STEWART 191 

from the very beginning-. One peculiar element 
of this strength was the fact that his losses, how- 
ever severe, never seemed in any manner to dis- 
turb the steady, almost icy serenity of his busi- 
ness manner. Such losses did come at times, 
for his, long experience of financial vicissitudes 
included the panics of 1837, 1857, and the lesser 
disturbances intervening. If others as sweeping 
were yet to come, men reasoned that his affairs 
would be found in a state of prophetic prepara- 
tion. 

Related to Mr. Stewart's real estate investments 
was the warm interest which he took in all mat- 
ters relating to the permanent improvement of 
the city : the widening of old streets and the 
opening of new thoroughfares and the like. At 
the same time he refused to take any active part 
in municipal politics, other than as the quiet but 
unflinching enemy of every form of corrupt ad- 
ministration. During the domination of what 
was called the "Tweed Ring," for instance, he 
was approached with an assurance that an or- 
dinance widening Laurens Street to its present 
condition as South Fifth Avenue could be ob- 
tained from the Board of Aldermen for fift}' 
thousand dollars. It would have greatly bene- 
fited a mass of property owned by him, but 
he replied: "No; but I will give fifty thousand 
this minute to know the names of the alder- 
men who expect to get the money." The ring 
went down in due season, and he was one of 
the public-spirited citizens who helped pull it 
down. 



102 MEN OF BUSINESS 

There were good years and bad years, and the 
retail dry-goods trade, as he had h)reseen, was 
tlritting nortliward. He was therefore prepar- 
ing" to go with it and was buying a new place for 
business. It was the entire block bounded by 
Broadway and Fourth .\yenue, between Ninth 
and Tenth Streets. He succeeded in absorbing, 
at liberal prices, all other titles, and then he built 
upon it what was then said to be the largest dry- 
goods establishment in the world. It was for his 
retail trade only, the wholesale department re- 
maining at Broadway and Chambers Street. It 
cost, when completed, in 1862, nearly two and 
three-quarters millions of dollars and was admir- 
ably complete in all its architectural plan and ar- 
rangements. Nearly two thousand persons found 
employment in it, and it was at once a daily hiye 
of eager purchasers, but it was hardly opened for 
business before its builder once more declared that 
he had made a mistake. The city had moyed 
northward while he was buying the lots and 
putting up the walls. He should haye stepped 
on in adyance, he said, and taken his new })osition 
further uji the island. That was a glance into 
the tuture. howeyer, since all buyers of the pres- 
ent took another yiew of the matter, and his trade 
increased ent)rmously. The year before the new 
structure was comi)leted. the war panic came. 
Some of his strongest riyals succinnbed to it. at 
least temporarily, but A. T. vStewart i!^ Co. held 
their own liriniv. in spite of enormous losses at 
the North antl West. The entire mass of their 
extended Southern business, with its credits, dis- 



ALKXANDM/i TUltNKY STKWAliT Id'S 

appeared as if in a fire, but somehow or other 
there had been a previous contraction and prepa- 
ration wliich avoided destructive consequences 
to the main business. This, too, was greatly ex- 
panded durini>; the "flush times" caused by war 
expenditures and the flood ol pa})cr money, but 
Mr. Stewart was one of the flrst to see and to 
declare in advance the inevitable i)erils which 
would attend the restoration ol business <nul 
fl nance to a healthful peace basis. So distinctly 
had he set forth his views and so dcej) an impres- 
sion had the}' made upon the minds of a number 
of capable men, that when General Grant became 
President, in 1869, he at once offered Mr. Stew- 
art the position of Secretary of the Treasury. 
The offer was eagerly accepted, in a patriotic 
readiness to do whatever could be done toward 
avoiding or diminishing the evils so })lainly fore- 
seen. But for one barrier the Senate would 
have consented at once, for the whole country 
approved the nomination. The law. however, 
excluded from holding the Treasury portfolio 
any citizen interested in importations, and he 
was ineligible. The President asked the Senate 
to amend or repeal the law, and Mr. Stewart 
offered to not only transfer his business to trus- 
tees, but to devote his entire proceeds from it to 
])ublic charities during his term of office. The 
Senate could not consistently change the law for 
a personal reason, and counsellors declared the 
other proposal inadecpiale. ll may be that 
neither Mr. Stewart nor any other man could 
have accomplished what he hoped and desired, 
13 



194 



MEN OF BUSINESS 



but, four 3'ears later, after a continual tightening- 
of finances and an endurance of " hard times," the 
predicted crash came, and the panic of Black 
Friday brought the business world down ruin- 
ously to its new level. The house of A. T. 
Stewart tS: Co. was not in the list of those that 
stopped payment. 

In 1867 Mr. Stewart's peculiar personal posi- 
tion had been recognized by his appointment 
as chairman of the United States Government 
Commissioners to the Paris Exposition. It was 
generally accepted as an eminently fit appoint- 
ment, even by the large class of men with whom 
he had failed to find what is called popularity. 
That was a thing which he had no perceptible 
desire for. He made no effort whatever to ob- 
tain it, not even 
when, in 1871, he 
sent fifty thousand 
dollars to the suf- 
ferers by the Chi- 
cago fire. He was 
roundly abused for 
not sending more, 
and was under- 
stood to have quiet- 
ly replied that no 
more was really 
needed, for the fire 
was a good thing and the city would be rebuilt 
better than ever. 

Mr. Stewart's own residence, at Fifth Avenue 
and Thirt3-fourth Street, was the most costly 




Mr Stewart s House, Thirty-fourth Street and 
Fifth Avenue, New York. 



ALEXANDER TURNEY STEWART mS 

dwelling in the country at the date of its com- 
pletion. It was indeed a palace, and its interior 
was as one gallery of works of art, in painting, 
sculpture, and artistic upholstery. Hardly less 
expensive, however, was the Hotel for Women 
which he built at Fourth Avenue and Thirty- 
second Street, but both were in a manner fail- 
ures. The Stewart palace ceased to be a dwell- 
ing, and the other great building not answering 
an existing demand, became a hotel for both sexes. 
Business success increased in all directions 
up to the very end, and minor errors or losses 
were of no consequence. A very remarkable re- 
sult came out of one of the many plans for im- 
provement which came to the mind of the great 
employer. Out upon Long Island, at no great 
distance, lay the wide reach of semi-desert known 
as Hempstead Plains. Useless for farming pur- 
poses, it was "commons," and the town of Hemp- 
stead, owning it from old colonial days, could 
give a valid title. After protracted negotiations 
this was obtained, to the great advantage of the 
sleepy old village, and Mr. Stewart went ahead 
with his plan. He proposed to change the 
gravelly waste into the site of a tOAvn of resi- 
dences for his own and other New York workers 
and called it Garden City. Large amounts of 
money were expended. School and other build- 
ings were erected. It was soon seen that some 
other kind of success might come, but not the 
accomplishment of the original purpose, for this 
costly gathering of villas was no place for wage- 
earners. 



196 



MEN OF BUSINESS 



Another change came first. On the loth of 
April, 1876, Mr. Stewart closed his long and 
busy career and his vast affairs passed into the 
hands of his partners and associates with hardly 
a disturbance in the steady movement of the 
business machine which owed its existence to his 
brain and hand. His wife proceeded with the 
plan for Garden City. In the centre of it she 
erected the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral 
Church of the Incarnation. It is archi- 
tecturally one of the most perfect speci- 
mens of the Gothic style in this 
country, and its tall spire is 
visible for many miles 
across the plain. It is 
the monument of 
Mr. Stewart, for his 
tomb is under it. 
It will endure, no 
man may say how 
long, but so will the 
deep mark left 
upon the methods 
and principles of 
the entire retail trade of this country by the 
man who absolutely compelled bu3'ers to trust 
in the honesty of his goods and the justice of 
his prices. So they grumbled while they pur- 
chased, but went home entirely satisfied with 
anything of which they could say, " I bought it 
at Stewart's." 




Memorial Church at Garden City. 




Philip Danforth Armour. 



X. 

PHILIP DANFORTH ARMOUR. 

It has been well said that the man who makes 
two blades of grass grow where only one grew 
before is a public benefactor. A very direct in- 
terpretation of this doctrine makes it apply to 
the man whose energy and enterprise, guided by 
special faculties of his own, open new business 
channels or increase the capacity of any already 
existing. By the business success of such men 
the business machinery is invented and builded 
which thenceforth may be used by others. It is 
through them that our resources of production 
are made available. In literal truth, the blades 
of grass are multiplied as uses are provided for 
them, while all the grass that in the old time 
withered where it grew changes its nature and 
becomes a factor in the general prosperity. 

There is a class of men found nowhere else 
more frequently than in our own country, who 
are endowed with something strongly resem- 
bling a creative power, for in their hands forces 
or materials unseen by others, or unmanageable 
if seen, take on shape, system, and precision of 
movement. What they really do is to construct 
the business organism through which the primal 
laws of supply and demand can operate. Every 



198 " MEN OF BUSINESS 

department of our national development furnishes 
abimdant examples. Probabl\- in no other, how- 
ever, have the changes accom})lished been of 
greater importance to the general welfare of this 
and other countries than in the organization of 
capital, labor, and business functions which takes 
care of our transportable food products. 

The benefit accrues alike to the producer and 
the consumer, for these are brought into relations 
with each other which could not otherwise ex- 
ist, and the man who sows wheat in Nebraska 
becomes a helpful next - door neighbor to the 
man who eats bread on the Rhine. The social 
and political consequences are visible, at least in 
outline, to the most casual observation. Every 
toiler in the East has a cash interest in the fact 
that the new States of the West have been settled 
and that their countless farms have become prof- 
itable, because of the varied business successes 
which have brought their crops of all kinds 
nearer to the rest of the world, at prices which 
under the old order of things would have cut off 
production. 

Prominent among the Americans whose use- 
fulness is in this way indicated, one man may be 
instanced whose career would read like a romance 
if it were not so deeply marked with common 
sense and so utterly devoid of anything erratic. 

Philip Danforth Armour was born at Stock- 
bridge, Madison County, N. Y., May i6, 1832. 
The family was of Scotch descent, but had been 
among the earlier settlers of New England. 
This branch of it removed from Connecticut to 



PHILIP DANFORTH ARMOUR 199 

New York in 1825, when the regi(jn they opened 
their farm in was comparatively new. Most of 
it was still covered by forests in which no axe 
had ever been plied. A Madison County pioneer 
farmer, like Philip's father, might be a very in- 
dependent and even prosperous man for the 
times, but such a household as that of the Ar- 
mours required to be managed with the strictest 
economy, allied to the most untiring industry. 
How this was well assured may in part be under- 
stood from the fact that Philip's mother, whose 
maiden name was Brooks, had been a school- 
teacher, and deemed it her duty to bring with 
her for home application the rigid discipline of 
the school-room. No doubt she found this all the 
more needful as her class of young Armours in- 
creased until it contained six uncommonly sturdy 
boys and three girls. Subsequent events make 
it interesting now to consider the numberless 
home industries in the performance of which 
those vigorous young people were trained to 
work together and held to a strict account at the 
end of their work. It is evident that the secret 
of organized co-operation and business partner- 
ship was taught systematically through the va- 
ried " chores " of the Madison County farm. 

To such a family a fair degree of prosperity 
was sure to come, but its younger membership 
grew up with a clear understanding that they 
could not always remain at home. As for Philip, 
in addition to the invaluable training given him 
by his father and mother, he was enabled to 
obtain all that could be given him by the district 



200 MEN OF BCSTNFJSS 

school ol the neighborhood, and then he was sent 
to the academy at Cazenovia lor another step in 
school-book education. He had already distin- 
guished himself among his playfellows as a 
boy of more than ordinary bodily strength and 
courage. His brothers were very much like him 
in this respect, and their overflowing animal 
spirits had not always been in perfect control 
when bey(^nd the wholesome repression of their 
home government. One of them, next older 
than Philip, had managed to get himself into 
a bovish scrape at the academy, much to his 
father's mortification, and Philip felt under a 
kind of bond for good behavior. It was true 
that he could not help being a leader among the 
bovs, but he would have done very well if it had 
not been for one of the girls. It was but a bov's 
romance, an innocent affair, that would have 
passed and left little impression upon a weaker 
nature. To Philip, however, it was something 
serious, and the otherwise probable course of 
his life was changed. He \vas only seventeen, 
tall and muscular for his age, and his mind also 
was ready for the powerful stimulus in this way 
given. He went home to tell his father that he 
would go to school no more, and then he told his 
mother that he was going to California to mine 
for gold, but neither of them then knew precisely 
whv he refused to return to Cazenovia. As for 
that matter, his brief courtship had indeed been 
a violation of the social laws of the seminarv, 
but not otherwise to the disadvantage of the 
two very young people engaged in it. 



PHILIP DAN FORTH ARMOUR 201 

It was the year 1850, and the California fever 
was at its heat. Wonderful tales were told of 
the fortunes won and the prospects for more 
among the placers of the Pacific Coast. Men 
♦with money to pay their passage could get there 
by sailing all the way around Cape Horn, or by 
the Isthmus route, but Philip's father, even after 
consenting to the proposed adventure, advocated 
as it was by Mrs. Armour, had no considerable 
sum to spare. Perhaps it was as well, for Philip 
found three or four other stout farmer boys who 
were ready to walk across the continent with 
him. That is, they were carried part of the way 
by rail and otherwise and walked the rest of it, 
the entire journey taking a round six months. 
There were privations and hardships to be en- 
dured on such a march, and there were endless 
adventures, for the path followed led among 
Indian tribes and across deserts and through the 
difficult passes of the mountain ranges. Philip 
had little besides his own tough muscles for capi- 
tal, when, at last, he saw his first placer and 
found a spot where he could dig and wash for 
dust and nuggets. 

He worked with pretty good success and he 
wasted nothing, for he kept the good habits he 
had been trained in. He was also studying the 
business opportunities of the country, however, 
and it was not long before he persuaded his 
friends to join him in purchasing and develop- 
ing a " ditch " — a rude aqueduct to convey water 
for diggers and washers. It proved so profit- 
able that his companions, otherwise wearied of 



202 MEN OF BUSINESS 

California life, were satisfied at the end of a year 
to sell out to him and return home. Philip re- 
mained to manage that and other water-powers 
among the placers, until, in 1856, he too was sat- 
isfied. When he left home he had dreamed of 
mining gold enough to come back and buy a 
farm in Madison County some day. There had 
been another part of his dream, for he had ex- 
pected that letters would follow him to the 
mines. Some did at times, but not the ones he 
had hoped for, although he wrote again and 
again. He seemed to be unanswered, forgotten, 
and he too ceased to write. It was not until 
long afterward that he learned that only the de- 
fective mail transportation of the mining region 
had been to blame, so that he too had seemed 
neglectful. Letters on both sides had failed to 
reach their intended readers, and so the school- 
day loves died out. Still, there was a reason 
why, when the tall and brawny miner of twenty- 
three went home to tell his father and mother 
and the rest that he was now able to buy several 
farms if he wished them, that he did not buy 
any, but turned away. He himself afterward 
declared that everything seemed so much smaller 
than when he was a boy that it pained him. His 
brothers and sisters had indeed grown up, and 
some of them had left home. The house, the 
trees, the hills were dwarfish, and Oneida Creek 
was a mere rill. He had been living among 
mountains and had seen the giant trees of Cali- 
fornia. x\t all events, he spent only a few weeks 
at home and then agfain went westward. The 



PHILIP DANFORTII ARMOUR 203 

East, with its settled ways and its seemingly oc- 
cupied ground, was no place for him. He 
travelled on and on until he reached Milwaukee, 
Wis., then in its very first stages of growth. A 
friend, Mr. Frederick S. Miles, was already car- 
rying on a wholesale grocery and commission 
business here, and the miner's capital was wel- 
come. A partnership was formed which con- 
tinued, with marked success, until 1863, but 
Mr. Armour's business ambition was setting 
steadily in one direction. He had been studying 
the existing methods for moving the vast and 
increasing food products of the West, and be- 
lieved he had found a field that suited him. He 
had capital, and he had also a well-earned repu- 
tation as one of the strongest and most trusted 
business men of the Northwest. It was a very 
deep mark to have made in less than six years, 
but other men seemed to have no question what- 
ever of his financial capacity and sure success. 

The old firm dissolved and Mr. Armour 
bought what was then the largest elevator in 
Milwaukee. This placed him in relations with 
the grain movement, but he at the same time 
went further. Mr. John Plankinton had been 
established in Milwaukee during a number of 
years, and, in partnership with Frederick Lay- 
ton, had built up its most prosperous pork-pack- 
ing concern. In 1862 Mr, Armour's brother, 
Herman O. Armour, had established himself at 
Chicago in the grain commission business, 
which he now turned over to the care of another 
brother, Joseph F. Armour, that he might go to 



204 MEN OF BUSINESS 

New York as a member of the new firm of 
Armour, Plankinton & Co. The Chicago house 
retained its former name of H. O. Armour & Co., 
but did not undertake "packing" until 1868. 
Philip D. Armour remained in Milwaukee for a 
while, but he had thus already constructed an 
admirable piece of business machinery to which 
all other improvements could be readily added. 
It was of peculiar importance that the Milwaukee 
and Chicago houses should be able to ship to 
a house of their own, that is, to themselves, in 
New York. Many risks were thereby avoided 
and a certainty was assured of obtaining all that 
the ever-changing markets could offer them. 

Other things were changing, at startling rates 
of progression. The West was growing fast and 
its areas of production were astonishing all 
observers by the results offered for handling and 
shipment. Railway lines were reaching out in 
new directions or were increasing their capaci- 
ties while lowering their rates of transportation. 
The very shipping on the lakes was changing its 
character and multiplying its tonnage. It was 
the time of times for the organization of the busi- 
ness enterprise of which Mr. Armour was the 
acknowledged head, however capable and trust- 
worthy his associates undoubtedly were. 

There had been other changes which rendered 
possible the creation of such a food-gathering 
and delivering system as that which Mr. Armour 
and his partners had undertaken to form and 
perfect. It was in the third year of the civil 
war, and they had full faith as to what the end of 



PHILIP DAN FORT II ARMOUR 205 

that must be, especially after the events of the 
" battle summer " marked by Vicksburg and 
Gettysburg. The State banking systems had 
passed away and had been replaced by the na- 
tional banks, while the bank-notes issued by 
these, with the legal-tender "greenbacks" of the 
United States, provided a uniform currency, 
everywhere available, instead of the miscella- 
neous and often questionable paper which had 
embarrassed produce purchasers in former times. 
The system of exchanges between the East and 
West had become greatl}^ simplified. A great 
stimulus had been given to all farming operations 
by war prices and the war demand. Nothing 
more was required than a steady day and night 
watchfulness upon the New York and Western 
markets, kept up by competent men in contin- 
uous telegraphic communication with each other 
and thoroughly acquainted with the legitimate 
demand and supply. They were therefore able 
to form generally correct opinions also concern- 
ing the course and result of speculative move- 
ments by whomsoever engineered. 

As to these, the Armours doubtless bought and 
sold with reference to any and all artificial fluc- 
tuations in prices, but they were not gamblers. 
They were the intelligent servants of a great 
public use. To that end they were thoughtfullv 
adopting every attainable improvement, mechan- 
ical or otherwise, in the methods and appliances 
for handling every pound of grain or flesh with- 
in their sphere of operations. In every depart- 
ment of their business the widest liberality went 



206 MEN OF BUSINESS 

hand in hand with the closest economy. Any 
hog, for instance, might be a loosely going fellow 
up to the hour when he was sold to an agent of 
Mr. Armour. From that time onward he might as 
well have been one of the parts of a watch, so com- 
pletely systematic were all his movements until, 
in the forms given him at the packing-house, he 
was offered upon the market. Not an ounce of 
him for which science had discovered a use had 
been wasted on the way. Something closely 
parallel to this would be the story of a bushel 
ot wheat or corn passing through the Armour 
elevators. 

The last year of the war and the years imme- 
diately following were marked by many and 
sharp fluctuations in the provision trade, but 
these were not permitted to work an}- harm to 
the Armours. As a rule, the house was prepared 
to profit by them, and the net result was a large 
increase in cash capital. It was needed, for the 
"plant" of the concern was absorbing sums 
which could not have been spared b}" an}' house 
greatly dependent upon credit. As to this, how- 
ever, financial men had acquired a degree of 
confidence which almost released the Armour 
paper from the ordinary consequences of re- 
stricted money markets. 

A great tide of migration westward took place 
after the war. and it was necessary to follow it. 
Another branch house was therefore established 
a1 Kansas City, in iS;i, under ihc name of Plank- 
inton (S: Armour, and in charge of Simon E. Ar- 
mour, one of Philip's older brothers. Two years 



PHILIP DANFORTH ARMOUR 207 

later the great panic of 1873 offered a sufficient 
test of the solidity of the seemingly widely ex- 
tended business connection, for it hardly ap- 
peared to have undergone any special strain, 
while large numbers of neighbor firms went down. 

The last change of importance in the mere an- 
nals of the firm took place in 1875. The failing 
health of Mr. Joseph F. Armour unfitted him 
for the heavy burden of the Chicago business. 
Mr. Plankinton was therefore left at Milwaukee, 
while Philip D. Armour i^emoved to Chicago, 
where he has since resided. 

There were six of the brothers and one was 
still at home, upon the old Stockbridge farm. 
He had proved himself a capable business man, 
however, and in 1879 the Armour Brothers 
Banking Company was created at Kansas City, 
and Mr. Andrew Watson Armour was made 
president of it. There is probably no record in 
this country of anything like a similar business 
success won by six farmer bovs. It cannot be 
said to have come from the good fortune of one 
of them in the California gold mines. No doubt 
it is true, however, that the same integrity, 
energ}', and business ability which made more 
money out of a ditch than other men were mak- 
ing out of rich placers had continued to direct 
the management of the capital brought back by 
Philip D. Armour. 

Chicago is the naturally central point of such 
a business as that of Armour cV Co., but it be- 
came much more so after the office of the firm in 
that city was taken in charge of the head of the 



308 MEN OF BUSINESS 

house. His brother indeed never recovered his 
health, but passed away in 1881. The business 
grew with the swift growth of the country, keep- 
ing pace with every step of the general develop- 
ment. 

That it did so is a result due to the combined 
intelligence of many working in perfect accord 
with their acknowledged captain. Even the 
workingmen regarded him as their friend as well 
as employer. During a season of labor trouble, 
when a general strike had been ordered, the new 
men obeyed, but the old hands who knew Mr. 
Armour refused, and no less than eight hundred 
of them went along with their work. There was 
no trouble between him and them, and so far as 
he could prevent, there never would be. In this, 
better than in another way, can be seen the 
peculiar personal force of the man with and for 
whom so many others of every grade and kind 
have worked for common purposes during so 
many years with hardly a recorded jar. 

No doubt the faculty of cordial co-operation 
was inborn and was judiciously fostered in 
childhood, in a home where there was uncom- 
mon unity and mutual confidence between par- 
ents and children. Philip's mother had said to 
him, when he spoke to her of the California 
trip : " Philip, you can go. I can trust you ; 1 
know that you will do no discredit to us." 

So said his father, and years after he had 
passed away, old Mrs. Armour, living with 
Philip, considered herself an active partner in 
the concern and regularly examined critically 



PHILIP DANFORTII ARMOUR 209 

the reports and balance-sheets of all the houses 
managed by her children, sons or sons-in-law. 
She was a woman of excellent business judg- 
ment, and her opinions and suggestions were 
always heeded. 

As the years went by, the great packing-house 
became almost as one of the public institutions 
of the West, so important was its agency in col- 
lecting and forwarding the products of several 
States. Mr. Armour long ago ceased to be 
merely a buyer and seller, for the nature of his 
business compelled him to become a manufac- 
turer as well as a merchant. Bacon, for instance, 
is a manufactured article, and it was strictly in 
the line of the cattle trade that a vast glue-fac- 
tory was added to the Chicago plant. 

A very fair idea of the business success at- 
tained may be formed by a study of the transac- 
tions of Armour & Co. for the year ending 
April I, 1893. Not counting other purchases or 
sales, but the distributing business for consump- 
tion only, these amounted to over $102,000,000. 
The hogs killed were 1,750,000; the cattle were 
1,080,000; the sheep were 625,000. Eleven thou- 
sand men were constantly employed and the 
wages paid them were over $5,500,000. The 
railway cars owned by the firm number over 
four thousand. The wagons are of many kinds 
and of large number, drawn by 750 horses. The 
glue -factory, employing 750 men, made over 
twelve millions of pounds of glue. 

Over all this business interest, with its branches 
and with its relations to so many workmen and 
14 



210 MEN OF BUSINESS 

their families and to so many farm-house liomes, 
still presides the hale and vigorous old man who 
in his teens walked across the continent to Cal- 
ifornia to make a fortune out of water instead of 
gold. Every morning at seven o'clock he is at 
his desk, cheerful, contented, and making others 
feel the same by manner and example. He is 
still a workingman and could not with comfort 
be anything else, remaining at his task until the 
evening. The business is transacted for its own 
sake, rather even than for its profits, large as 
these are. Its manager has travelled far and wide 
and has studied the business methods of his own 
and other lands, bringing into his own counting- 
room and factories everv teaching or improve- 
ment he could find for the benefit of all concerned. 
He is well posted in the questions of the day, but 
has refused to meddle witli politics beyond per- 
forming his duties as a citizen. He has not 
called it " politics." however, to take an active 
interest in all the legislation and diplomacy 
called for in securing protection for the increas- 
ing shipments of American meat products to Eu- 
rope. It has been a matter of course that this 
has brought him into consultation and personal 
relations with many of our foremost statesmen 
and diplomats, as well as with representatives of 
parties and of the press. 

The farmer's boy who, from the beginning, 
showed so strong a tendency for taking other 
boys along with him, and who kept it up until 
the entire crowd numbers about twelv^e thousand 
paid bv his own business establishment, has by 



PHTLTP DANFOUTTT ARMOUR 211 

no means lost his interest in vonng people of the 
age of those whom he found and left at the Caze- 
novia Academy. His deep interest in them and 
in the general cause of education has been mani- 
fested in many ways and most notably by the 
founding and directing of the Armour Institute 
at Chicago. This, too, promises to become a 
monument to his peculiar faculty for improving 
upon previously existing methods. 

In 1862 Mr. Armour married Miss Malvina 
Belle Ogden, of Cincinnati, and he has sons who 
seem to have inherited their father's character 
and capacity. 

The Cazenovia girl whose letters were lost on 
the way also married happily in due season, but 
something of romance still attaches, on her ac- 
count, to the remarkable career of the bo)- who 
broke the rules of the school for her sake, walked 
across the continent that he might win he knew 
not what, and came back to find that nothing 
would induce him to settle in that neighbor- 
hood. It was too narrow, for more reasons than 
one, but wide indeed was the other neighborhood 
into which he went out that he might organize 
in it, from the Atlantic shore to the lakes and the 
Western plains and mountains, the business con- 
nections and success of the Armours. 



XI. 

HORACE BRIGHAM CLAFLIN. 

Among the eternal truths long ago written 
down for the guidance of men, is hardly any so 
imperfectly understood as this : " The liberal 
soul deyiseth liberal things, and by liberal things 
shall he stand." 

The miserly ignore it altogether. The merely 
ostentatious, the hypocrites of false charity and 
the traders in giying, read only the promise and 
misinterpret the condition. 

It is a precept which peculiarly applies to the 
conduct of business, to all the affairs of actiye 
life, and its examples are more numerous than 
the unthinking imagine. A business record, 
therefore, which furnishes a complete illustra- 
tion, kno\yn and read of all men, is worth pre- 
senting as a stud}' for those who wish to succeed. 

Horace B. Claflin was born at Milford, Mass., 
December i8, 1811. It was a small place, bear- 
ing only the ordinary marks of a New England 
village. It had its district school and its acad- 
emy, and the peryading tone among its thrifty 
families was eminently moral and religious. The 
bo3'S who grew up there were likely to receive 
l)rccept upon precept and line upon line, and 
with them such occasional corrective applica- 




^r^: i«H . 




Horace Brigham Claflin. 



HORACE BEIGHAM VLAFLIN 213 

tions as were in that da}' supposed to be the in- 
dispensable needs of boys at the hands of parents 
and preceptors. 

The father of Horace was Mr. John Claflin, 
and he was a prosperous man, as times went. 
He kept a country store, with the usual miscel- 
laneous assortment of whatever goods were like- 
ly to be called for, some that were unlikely and 
some that ought not to have been called for. 
He also owned and conducted a farm and held 
the office of justice of the peace. 

At school and at the academy, Horace seems 
to have been better known for his love of fun 
than for anything else, although he attended to 
his books reasonably well. He acquired as much 
from them as falls to the share t)f most bright, 
merry boys, overflowing with animal spirits, but 
he did not do more, and he formed no tastes 
for further advancement in scholarship. Per- 
haps his father's store aided more than was sus- 
pected, in arousing and shaping his natural 
genius, but he was himself the first to discover 
his own bent and determine the path in life he 
was to pursue. It was his father's ambition that 
his son should take a college course and prepare 
for one of the learned professions. He was a 
wise parent, however, and decided not to em- 
ploy too much pressure in such a matter. He 
spoke to the academy principal about it, and he, 
with whom Horace was something of a favorite, 
brought before the fim-loving boy of sixteen the 
grim subject of the Greek and Latin required to 
pass a college examination. Horace listened, 



214 MEN OF BUSINESS 

lh()ii|^-ht about it, and })r()iniscd to try the dead 
lan^^uages " and see how it agrees with me." 

It was a short triaL Before long he came 
again to report a hnal result, saying to his friend 
and preceptor : 

" My purpose is to spend my life in trade, and 
I do not see how the study of Greek and Latin 
will be beneficial to me in that pursuit. I want 
to be in business this minute. 1 am young, but 
that is no objection. The younger I begin the 
better." 

The talk was reported to John Claflin and he 
again showed the clear-minded common sense 
which had probabl}' been the most valuable ele- 
ment in his son's early instruction, for he said : 
" Sure enough, why should he study Latin and 
Greek, if he is to be a merchant." 

There was the store, however, and very soon 
afterward the 3'oung merchant was serving his 
apprenticeship behind his father's counter. He 
had always been free of the place and felt at 
home there, but now it had become his academy 
and his college, in which he was to learn the 
arts and sciences of business life. He was but 
twenty years of age when his father determined 
to retire from store-keeping. He had another 
son named Aaron, and a son in law named 
Samuel Daniels. The three young men were all 
apparently fitted to set out upon their own ac- 
count. They each received one thousand dol- 
lars, as capital to begin with, and the business 
was turned over to them. It looked like a prom- 
ising start in life, for the country in which John 



HORACE Bill OH AM GLAFLIN 215 

Claflin had prospered was growing richer 
yearly, but his sons, at least, were not long con- 
tented with their narrow quarters at Milford. 
A year later, in 1832, Horace became of age, and 
he and Aaron opened a branch store in Worces- 
ter, Mass. This was devoted exclusively to dry- 
goods, the old concern retaining its general 
character. Another year went by with fair suc- 
cess, and then a partition was agreed upon. 
Aaron retained the established country-store 
business at Milford, while Horace launched out 
alone into the uncertainties and competitions of 
the new enterprise. 

He had made one important innovation in Mil- 
ford, and he carried it with him to Worcester. 
In that day almost all men were supposed to 
make more or less use of alcoholic liquors. 
Not only did all stores and groceries keep them 
on hand for sale, but they were deemed indis- 
pensable to the proper method of being polite to 
customers. If a man bought anything worth 
while it was meanness and rudeness not to treat 
him. If he was a new-comer, a social glass 
might draw him on to business. If he was a 
hard dealer, sharp in his bargains, he might be 
softened and the way to his pocket made easier. 

About the first stroke of business energy per- 
formed by Horace, however, on becoming a 
partner in the young firm, was to bring up from 
the cellar and out from the store every quart of 
the liquor on hand, and pour it into the gutter. 
No more was ever brought in, and when he 
began his business career in Worcester, no bait 



216 MEN OF BUSINESS 

c)l that kind was employed to allure his custom- 
ers. 

He did attract them, however, and that by 
methods which brought upon him the sharp dis- 
pleasure of all his business rivals, who loved the 
old-time ways and suddenly found him making 
dashing inroads upon their trade. Even at this 
early stage of his career he had discovered that 
the sure road to success lay in doing business 
for its own sake, without too eager an eye to the 
profits of each bargain. 

Since the old colony times there had been little 
change in the dull routine of trade in that highly 
respectable town. The old methods had some- 
thing orthodox and sound about them, and it 
was a sin to break them up, but young Claflin 
laughingly did so. Perhaps his first open of- 
fence — for giving up treating left that advantage 
to others — was in the manner and vivacious char- 
acter of his advertising. That important arm of 
the business service was then in its infancv, but 
he proved himself an adept in it from the begin- 
ning. Worse than this, however, was his grave 
heresy concerning large profits. He would not 
have them, nor the name of them. When a 
salesman came to him, one day, for praise for 
the wide margin he had made in the disposal of 
certain goods, he found himself kindly reproved 
and was instructed not to do so again, for it was 
contrary to the princii)les ujion which the busi- 
ness was to be run. The next clement that he 
undertook to introduce was that of perpetual 
sunshine. Special attention and cordial wel- 



HORACE BRIGHAM CLAFLIN 217 

come was to be given to the first customei's com- 
ing in the morning, that the day might begin 
well. Perhaps the next point made was by his 
own unfailing fund of humor and the cheerful, 
kindly way in which he met all men and all 
women. Even his rivals were forced to put 
aside trade animosities whenever they met him, 
and his customers became as his personal friends. 

Not that he had no enemies. His credit was 
good, but he was buying and selling on the 
credit system and all men watched all other men 
for any signs of financial weakness. Once a year 
it was his custom to close his store while taking 
account of stock, and almost as often as this hap- 
pened a i-eport of his failure travelled around the 
town and then went to Boston, to be inquired 
into, contradicted, and laughed over. 

The store first occupied became too small for 
the increasing business, and a larger place was 
taken. At the same time, one of Mr. Clafiin's 
clerks and another young man were admitted as 
"junior partners" of the youngest merchant in 
Worcester. He ali-eady had the largest trade 
in his line and was becoming widely known as 
one of the most enterprising merchants in New 
England outside of Boston. He was himself 
the life of the concern, for his own clerks report- 
ed of him that whenever he was away, buying 
goods or otherwise, everything seemed dead 
until he returned. There could be no dulness 
with him in the store to stir things up. 

Ten years of go(xl success, with losses as well 
as gains, went swiftly by. Mr. Clafiin was now 



218 MEX OF BUSINESS 

a married man, apparently well settled for life, 
as the leading merchant of a prosperous town. 
Upon all considerations of prudence, said all his 
prudent friends, he should remain where he was 
and continue to reap the harvests of the excel- 
lent field which he had made his own. And yet 
he talked of going to New York, where all the 
business was already overdone and where he 
would surely be crushed in competition with es- 
tablished houses of vast wealth and able manage- 
ment. 

He had studied the matter and he had fuUv de- 
termined upon being a merchant, in the wider 
sense of the term, rather than a shop-keeper. 
After closing out his Worcester business, he 
had $30,000 in cash for capital. He had also 
secured an excellent partner, Mr. William M. 
Bulkley, and the new venture was undertaken 
under the firm name of Bulkley & Claflin. 
People at all familiar witl>f the New York of 
to-day may find a curious interest in the locali- 
ties of its business in the year 1843, for the 
dry-goods store to which the expected trade 
was to come was away down at No. 46 Cedar 
Street. Mr. Claflin's residence was on Pierre- 
pont Street, Brooklyn, and there it continued 
to be until his death, for when he grew rich he 
did but move a short distance to his new and 
costlier home. 

The Cedar Street business prospered on pre- 
cisely the same principles which had prevailed 
at Worcester, and it was wonderful how rapidlv 
Mr. Claflin's personal acquaintance grew within 



IIORACK lilUailAM CLAFJJN 219 

the lines oi commerce autl finance. lie did not 
i^o into what is called society ; he did not be- 
come a member of any club ; but in and around 
his own home-circle he loimd, or drew together, 
one of the very brightest of social coteries. It 
left little need for any other means for enjoying 
perfectly the out-of-business hours of a very 
hard-worked business man. Added to this, how- 
ever, w'ere his relati(ins with Plymouth Church, 
in w^hich, although not a member of the ecclesi- 
astical body, but of the society, he became one 
of the best-known associates, and was during 
many years a trustee and a liberal supporter. 

Through seven years the business grew, and 
then a larger store was built by the firm at No. 
57 Broadway, a region from which their kind of 
trade has long since departed. In 1851 Mr. 
Bulkley retired and a new firm was constructed, 
under the title of Claflin, Mellen & Co., the com 
pany consisting of several juniors. The number 
and character of this part of Mr. Claflin's busi- 
ness management brings out strongly the dis- 
tinguishing feature of his character. He had a 
rare judgment of the qualities of other men. It 
aided him in discriminating as to credits given, 
as to business associates, and it was keen in his 
selection of subordinates whom he could trust. 
More than this as to the latter, however, was his 
hearty delight in hel])ing yoimg men to a start in 
life and older men wdio met with disasters to start 
in life again. The instances known arc too numcr- 
(nis for mention or even for selection. Fhe num- 
ber of which no man knew but himself, and those 



220 MEX OF BUSIXESS 

who were helped can only be surmised by reason 
of so man}- being discovered. 

Just above Trinity Church, on Broad wav, is 
the large building now known as the headquar- 
ters of the real estate business. It is No. in. 
and very few who pass or enter it would suppose 
that it was built in 1853, to accommodate the 
growing dry-goods business of Claflin, Mellen tS: 
Co. There are now no silks or other fabrics 
offered for sale so near the head of Wall Street. 

By this time, Mr. Clafiin's position among the 
merchants of New York had become established. 
His credit was excellent, for all men who dealt 
with him acquired undoubting faith in his integ- 
rity, while those who had bought of him once were 
sure to come again. It was indeed considered 
a success when it was known that his sales for 
1853 footed up more than a million of dollars ; but 
that sum was larger then than it seems to be now. 
and the narrowing margins of profit required in- 
creasing sales. There were other houses doing 
as well or better. The wealth and trade of the 
country was expanding with wonderful rapidity, 
and it remained to be seen which among the 
many capable competitors would carry off the 
lion's share. Probably the keenest of all rivals, 
at any and all times, was the house of A. T. 
Stewart & Co., the head of which was a man 
who never hesitated to take a loss iq)()n any line 
of goods, if by so doing he could keej) or gain a 
line of customers. Collision after collision, often 
at heavy cost, convinced both houses, oi^ should 
have done so, that neither had an}- prospect for 



HORACE BRIG IT AM CLAFLIX 221 

a permanent victory over the other. The least 
pleasini^ part of the rivalrv was the tact that 
weaker concerns were sometimes crushed in the 
combats of the stronger. Mr. Claflin never 
actnallv made war — that is, he never began it, 
but the verv principles upon which he did his 
business challenged such a dashing operator in 
fabrics as was Mr. Stewart. 

In the year i860, the sales of Claflin, Mellen & 
Co. reached the grand total of $13,500,000, and 
again there was a demand for \vider quarters. 
The wholesale dr3'-goods trade was steadily 
drifting northward, but Mr. Claflin went beyond 
its apparent outposts and bought land in a local- 
ity that was then mainly occupied by the poorest 
tenement-houses. A new building was erected 
at the corner of Church and Worth Streets, run- 
ning the whole length of the block to West 
Broadway. The transfer of the business was ac- 
complished, and a swift expansion followed, very 
much as if every sail had been spread to catch 
the gust of a great storm. 

Mr. Claflin had openly avowed himself an anti- 
slavery man, even when to do so was regarded 
as a very detrimental thing for a business man 
to dare. Beyond a doubt it hurt his Southern 
trade, that he was known to be a warm supporter 
of the Republican Partw although he was not at 
all a man to cherish political bitterness. For that 
precise reason, he underestimated the bitter- 
nesses which rankled in the hearts of other men. 
It was of no use to point out to him the clouds 
in the political horizon, or to urge upon him the 



L>22 MEN OF BUSINESS 

many threatening signs that a hurricane was 
near at hand. In common with some of our 
ablest statesmen, he had no fear of a violent out- 
break — it was to be only a shower, not a cyclone. 
All the more shattering, therefore, was the effect 
of the first breath of the Civil War, in 1861. All 
credits suffered, for all the world of finance sud- 
denly stood still, not knowing what to do. Dis- 
counts almost ceased. The best of " customer's 
paper " could not be used at the banks, except 
\yithin narrow limits. It was of no use to strug- 
gle, and the successful house of Claflin, Mellen 
& Co., saw nothing but a disastrous failure before 
it, involving an utter wreck of their splendid 
business. 

It is said that Mr. Claflin hardly lost his 
cheerfulness, but met his down-hearted business 
friends with a brave and smiling face, and then 
went home to be almost as full of humorous fun 
as ever in the circle of which he was the life and 
centre. 

His genial courage was a powerful element 
in tiding over the emergency. He called a 
meeting of his creditors and proposed to settle 
with them for sevent}" cents on the dollar, giving 
long-time notes for the various amounts, and go 
on with the business. All who could do so ac- 
cepted his offer, but there were some who could 
not, and paper with his name on it was selling on 
the street at fifty cents on the dollar. He could 
do nothing for this class of his creditors at that 
time, but his friends bought up and held all the 
claims they could find. It was a time for a man 



HORACE BBIGHAM CLAFLIN 2-23 

to have friends, and the liberal soul who had con- 
tinually devised liberal things found that he was 
standing while a host of others were falling like 
wind-blown trees. 

There was no permanent disaster ; nothing 
but losses and a great jar, the effect of which 
passed away. The war itself, with its numerous 
activities, its vast expenditures, its issues of 
greenbacks, caused a Hood of business to follow 
the temporary stoppage. The firm that had 
been so wisely and liberally held up was in a po- 
sition to profit by the swift expansion. The de- 
velopment of its trade was like a feverish vision, 
for during the year 1865-66, May ist to May ist, 
the sales amounted to over $72,000,000. It is 
said, with probable correctness, that the sales of 
the most prominent rival during the same year, 
while $30,000,000 less, were much more profita- 
ble, because including so large a retail trade, but 
the foundation principle of Mr. Clafiin's manage- 
ment was the acceptance of a moderate profit 
for the benefit of all concerned. There were 
large aggregate profits nevertheless, and there 
were also endless recoveries of important sums 
from debtors, East and West, who were in like 
manner getting again upon their feet. Not 
long after the compromise which set the busi- 
ness wheels in operation, the house began to 
take up the extended paper. The seventy cents 
w^as paid first, and then the thirty cents required, 
with interest, to bring all that class of payments 
up to par. Next came the paper bought in at 
half price, but following this was a hunt for the 



2*24 ^fEx OF nusiifESS 

original holders who had j^artcd with it in dis- 
tress. Mr. Chitlin's Iriends had not pnichased for 
monev-niaking, and thev hail ti-anstcn-cd to him 
without profit, except to their honor. He now 
paid every first holder in full, with interest, and 
no man could sav that he had lost money througli 
trusting the great house. The extended paper 
was paid off. discounted, long before the dates 
of its maturity, and the credit of the firm, with 
banks, importers, and manufacturers, at home 
and abroad, stood higher than before the storm 
of 1861, when the Bull Run defeat marked the 
date of business suspension. 

On January i, 1864, Mr. Mellen retired and 
more juniors \yere admitted to form the reor- 
ganization of H. B. Claflin cV Co. In providing 
for the prosperity of so many others Mr. Claflin 
necessarily reduced his own prospects for accu- 
mulation, but his profits were invested with 
good judgment and his wealth grew. 

From 1865 to the day of his death, the volume 
of the firm's transactions exceeded those of any 
other mercantile house in America, if not in all 
the world. A large number of other concerns 
including important manufacturing establish- 
ments, were its feeders, and seemed almost to 
belong to its machinery. His business connec- 
tions extended to every land from which goods 
could be obtained for his field in the American 
market, and his counting-rot)m was as a head- 
quarters lor the merchants of Europe who vis- 
ited the New World. 

Mr. Claflin had always been plainly out- 



irORAP/': nUTGITAM Cr.AFIJX 21^") 

s[)()kcn in iiis \ic'\\s upon political ciucslious, but 
IkuI iicNC'i" taken a \rAV\ in [)olitics more jjromi- 
nent than that ot a lihei'al contributoi-, or by his 
welcome pi"esence at public meetin^^'s and })artv 
councils. In 1872, however, in the cam})aig'n h)r 
the second election of President Grant, he 
served as a Presidential elector, for the party 
was in need of all the streni^th that any man 
could give tt) it. 

The aspect of the times then grew darker as 
the months went bv. The inflated, abnormal, 
feverish condition of affairs created by the war 
could not long continue under the processes of 
contraction which began to operate with the re- 
turn of peace. 

Financiers and business men were well aware 
that the country was in a perilous situation, but 
there seemed no possible remedy until a very 
sharp one came. This was nothing less than the 
sudden panic which began upon Black Frida}-, 
September 24, 1873, and swept evervthing before 
it. Money, that is, legal tender money, seemed 
to vanish. Banks and trust companies suspend- 
ed payiiients. A host of houses closed their 
doors and hundreds of them were not to open 
again. The house of H. B. Claflin tSc Co., had 
made no considerable effort at restricting its 
operations. When the crash came and hardly 
any more bank acc(Humodations were to be had, 
its name was said to be out, as maker or respon- 
sible indorser, upon no less than $25,600,000 of 
commercial paper. A better illustration could 
not be given of the nature of the business it was 

15 



22() ^fEN OF nrsTXESs 

doinii-, or ol the continual burtlen carried bv its 
head and tinancial manager. It he had been a 
man of less capacity, or it otlier men had had less 
confidence in him, there wonld have been a stu- 
pendous wreck ; but there was not. All he asked 
tor from his creditors was an extension of time 
(or five months, and it was readilv granted. 
The panic passed away, the tides of business 
moved again, and the time reallv required for 
taking up all obligations was two months instead 
ot tive, without loss to anvbodv. Xobodv want- 
ed to see H. B. Claflin fail. His personal char- 
acter stood like a tower, and the entire business 
community took a kindlv pleasure in the fact 
that he had " pulled through." 

Two years later, in 1875, came a most vexa- 
tious disturbance of another sort. I'pon a tech- 
nical misinterpretation of a law then on the stat- 
ute-books, the house was sued bv the United 
States Government for large sums alleged to be 
due in connection with asserted undervaluations 
of imported goods. It was not said that thev 
had made money illegally, or otherwise, but that 
they had become liable for the sins of other men. 
It was a curicnis piece of work, in which there 
seemed to lurk a thinly covered element of black- 
mail and highway robberv. Popular svmpathv, 
after a brief hearing of the facts, ran stronglv 
with Mr. Claflin. so much so that propositions 
tor a compromise were made. He could wipe 
out the affair, for instance, for $50,000. so that 
the agents and informers putting it in motii)n 
should not fail to be paid for their industrv. 



HORACE BRIG HAM CLAFLIN 227 

Flatly cind firmly he refused to yield an ineh. 
It was not his method of beiiii^ liljeral, and he 
foui^ht it out, defeating the government in the 
courts three times in succession. If he paid 
more than $50,000 in expenses and law fees, he 
did not pay a dollar in any other way, and he 
won the battle. As an expression of the feeling 
of his fellow-citizens and of their share in his 
hard-won victory, thirty-two leading commercial 
houses and banking institutions united in ten- 
dering him a banquet of congratulation, while 
the public press added its hearty approval. 

Mr. Claflin was now becoming an elderly man, 
but he did not actually slacken his activities. 
He only took a little more time for his home 
comforts. He now had a country-house, at 
Fordham, where he could be more at ease than 
in his elegant mansion on Pierrepont Street. 
Particularly, he could keep more horses there, 
and no reasonably fair day passed without a 
drive of from ten to twenty miles behind tine 
roadsters. He had a strong liking for horses, 
and he had been one of Henry Bergh's warmest 
supporters in that gentleman's noble crusade 
against all forms of cruelty to animals. The 
giving process went steadily on, reaching out in 
every form of well-directed charitv. No man 
could follow it. Only bv accident, for instance, 
was discovered the secret of the long walks he 
was accustomed to take on each New Year's 
Day. He went out with his hat on his head, but 
it was found to be packed with small checks for 
distribution — no man ever knew how or where. 



22S MEX or nrsixpjss; 

Near alter xear wont l)\-, and the veteran mer- 
chant seemed to be as mei'rv, as happy, as Iiu- 
morous as ever, but he was compelled to take a 
little more, and a little more time for rest and 
recreation. Still he seemed so well, so vigorous 
that it was felt as a great and sudden shock 
when, on the 14th of November, 1885, the news 
went out that a stroke of paralysis had termi- 
nated his long and honorable career. 

The response was a marvellous expression of 
the love and esteem he had won from all who 
knew him. There were meetings of business 
men, of churches, of charitable societies, of 
financiers, for the formal expression of a feeling 
which seemed to be almost universal. There 
was one remarkable feature discoverable every- 
where. The men who spoke at these gatherings 
and the writers for the public prints did indeed 
sav much concerning his abilitv, his integritv, 
and his vast success as a business man, but they 
turned from that part of the general theme to 
tell warm-hearted anecdotes — incidents that 
they knew of his ever-flowing liberality ; bright 
sketches of the manner of his giving in all forms 
of help, or how his liberal send had devised its 
liberal things. There is no doubt, although they 
did not sav so, that it was largely through the 
strength which in this way came to him that in 
his days of trial he stood so firmly. 




Marshall Ov%en Roberts. 



XII. 

MARSHALL OWEN ROBERTS. 

It is not easy to express in one word our per- 
ception that any man possesses more of life-force 
and its related courage than does another. We 
are nevertheless attracted irresistibly by the 
brilliant figures of our chiefs and heroes of 
every type as we see them going ft)rward in ad- 
vance of the front ranks of the general mass. It 
is hardly less so at times when they are found 
among the retreating remnants of some lost 
battle, the last to give up the field and full of 
grim determination to fight again. In any study 
of them, however, it is of by no means small im- 
portance to consider the surroundings in which 
their careers began, as well as their later achieve- 
ments. In the year 1814 the city of New York 
had been without a British garrison for nearly 
thirty-one years, but the history of its commerce 
during all that time had prepared it for the pe- 
culiar character it assumed upon the declaration 
of war with England, June 18, 1812. Nearly all 
the causes of the war had been felt with special 
severity by our seaport towns, and their popula- 
tions were pervaded by a spirit of retaliation and 
reprisal which was not at all tliminished by the 
fact that British cruisers, regular navy and pri- 



230 MEy OF Bl'SiyESS 

vateers, almost swept the seas at once of Ameri- 
can merchant craft. It seemed as if every swift 
ship owned in New York and for which guns 
could be found was promptly fitted out as a pri- 
vateer, and their success was such that betore 
long- British insurance companies collected over 
ten per cent, for insuring cargoes onlv to cross 
the British channel. On land, along the Xow 
York and Canada border, and on Lake Cham- 
plain, occurred much of the severest hghting of 
the war. It ended with the year 1S14, but the 
spirit of intense, aggressive patriotism did not 
end with it. nor did a kind of semi-warlike pride 
in American ships and commerce. 

The boys of New York breathed an atmos- 
phere full of patriotic traditions and of tales of 
adventure, while the new wharves and ware- 
houses along the water-front of Manhattan Island 
were building and the ships increased in number 
and in size before their eves vear after vear. 

Among the New York boys born in the year 
1S14 (March 22d) was Marshall Owen Roberts. 
His father and mother were ^Velsh. and in his 
own character, from step to step, appeared a full 
share of the fire, vigor, quick imagination, and 
even rashness which has alwavs distinguished 
the primitive race of Wales. They were of the 
upper middle class, his father being a phvsician, 
and their arrival in New York had been in the 
year 179S. At that date, indeed, all the indus- 
trial and commercial interests of the citv were 
still in the semi-chai^tic or formative condition 
left behind by the long war for independence. 



MARSHALL OWEX BO HERTS 231 

Dr. Roberts was able to give his sou a orof^cl 
education, and it was his intention to send him to 
college in due season, and then to prepare him 
tor the medical profession. The foundations for 
such a course of training were laid in the best 
local schools, and voung Roberts evinced abun- 
dant capacity for dealing with his text-books. 
As time went on, however, it was found that he 
had an unconquerable distaste for the life of a 
practitioner. The things he saw and the current 
topics of discussion with the other bovs were all 
pulling him in another direction. Long years 
afterward he w'ould sometimes relate to inti- 
mate friends how even in his childhood he used 
to walk along the wharves and watch the ships 
loading and unloading, and dream of wdiere they 
had been and where they were going, till he 
knew^ the flags of nations and the different kinds 
of vessels and the sailors. So he came to long 
for ships of his own and for the stir and ex- 
citement, the adventure and risk, the changing 
profit-and-loss account of a merchant's life. He 
was fond also, as his boyhood went on, of fishing 
and boating excursions, and he knew^ every nook 
and cranny of the Manhattan Island, New Jersey, 
and Long Island shores of the port of New 
York. 

Very good use was made of the schools to 
which his father sent him. but the college course 
and the medical diploma were not to come, for 
he was yet in his teens when he was permitted 
to follow his own bent. His first employment 
was as the youngest clerk in a wholesale gro- 



'2o'2 MEX OF BL'SIXE.'^S 

cerv house. Here he could learu somewhat of 
foreign trade and of business methods, but be- 
fore long he won a step of promotion into a 
regular ship-chandler's concern, where every- 
thing smelled of the sea. He was able to obtain 
good wages, as times went, and he was almost 
parsimoniously saying, for he had great objects 
in yiew. He hoped, of course, to do business for 
himself some day. but he was also cultivating 
tastes and tendencies which were remarkable in 
one so young and with such other tastes. He 
had no idea of ever becoming an artist, but he 
was, neyertheless, passionateh' fond of art. In a 
large show-window of a corner store that he 
was compelled to pass frequently there was a 
good -sized oil-painting by a native artist. Its 
merits, really lair, were to him wonderful. He 
was late in his return from more than one of his 
business errands because of lingering before that 
entrancing picture, and he determined to save up 
money and buy it. That he persevered until he 
succeeded in doing so was one of his earlier 
victories, and to the day of his death it held a 
post of honor in his crowded gallery, among the 
masterpieces of both hemispheres. 

The prize did not come at once, for his first 
use of his savings was in another direction. On 
becoming of age he launched out for himself, 
with another young man of energy and ambi- 
tion, in the general hardware and shipping-sup- 
ply business. 

The only store they could obtain in a suitable 
locality was too large for their capital, and the 



MARSHALL OWEN ROBERTS 333 

small stock they could purchase, for cash or 
credit, seemed lost upon its too ample shelves 
and counters. 

" The)- look like samples ! " exclaimed the dis- 
gusted partner. 

"That's it!" replied Mr. Roberts. "I'll go 
and buy a load of bricks ! " 

Each brick, nearly of the size of one of the 
sales packages of screws, for instance, was neat- 
ly done up as such a package, with a sample tied 
at its end. It was art-work that was done with 
closed doors, but the shelves now made a fine 
appearance, and the dummies created a good im- 
pression of the capacities of the new concern. 
It was really astonishing how many customers 
came for screws to the place which kept on 
hand the largest stock of them. 

During two years which followed there was 
an almost day and night study of the markets 
related to the business, and of all the channels of 
supply and demand. The first important result, 
other than a steady increase of sales to well-satis- 
fied customers, came in the shape of a govern- 
ment contract for the supply of the Navy De- 
partment with whale oil. Mr. Roberts had made 
connections which enabled him to become the 
lowest bidder, and the subsequent course of the 
market gave him yet a larger profit than he had 
hoped for. 

It has been considered worthy of note how 
many mercantile successes seem to date from the 
period of severe depression marked by the panic 
of 1837, and somewhat similar is the record of 



234: MES OF BUSIXESS 

other sweeping financial disasters. It was from 
that date that Mr. Roberts found the field of ac- 
tion manifestly opened for him, as if the storm 
had cleared away obstacles. It did not prove so, 
however, to men who were not readv to seize 
the opportunities offered them. Such as Mr. 
Roberts saw and availed himself of. moreover, 
were almost altogether those which he had 
known and studied ever since he could remem- 
ber. As he obtained a freer use of capital, he 
looked across the North River to the long, 
muddv, seeminglv useless flats of the New Jer- 
sev shore, and purchased for a merelv nominal 
price, while other men jeered at him, reaches of 
water-front which in later years he sold for a 
million and a quarter of dollars. He had been 
familiar from boyhood with all the craft of the 
Hudson, freighter passenger, and now he under- 
took to meet the growing demand for something 
better. He began with the verv beginning of 
river steamboat traffic, and his success in hand- 
ling it enabled him at last to build and own the 
steamer Hendrik Hudson, the floating palace of 
her day. 

The verv nature of the several interests in the 
hands of Mr. Roberts prepared him, on the out- 
break of the war with Mexico, in 1845, to bid for 
government contracts for armv and navv sup- 
plies and for the transportation of troops, but he 
had seen more clearly than other men that the 
war must come, and all his calculations had been 
made before a gun was fired. That he was so 
ready was afterward of more than a little im- 



MARSHALL OWEX ROBERTS 235 

l^ortcince to the war operations themselves, and 
his own profits were large. The treaty of peace 
between the United States and Mexico was 
signed early in February, 1848, but the return of 
troops was not completed until a later da}'. By 
the treaty, not (jnly Texas, but New Mexico and 
Upper California, became United States terri- 
tory, and hardly was it signed before a report 
went out through the country that " gold dig- 
gings " had been discovered along the river-beds 
of California. It was said that the war volun- 
teers, as a rule, marched for the Pacific slope 
placers as soon as they were paid off. The gold 
excitement was at its height in 1849, ^^^ the main 
question seemed to be one of transportation for 
the swarms of eager adventurers. Once more 
Mr. Roberts was in position to meet the demands 
of the hour, and he invested heavily, in ships and 
money, in a company which proposed to run 
lines of steamers on either coast in connection 
with the Isthmus of Panama. Thousands of 
would-be miners toiled across the continent over- 
land ; others sailed wearily around Cape Horn ; 
the Nicaragua and Tehuautepec routes were 
preferred by many, but the Panama transit more 
than justified the first opinions formed of its 
superior advantages. The overland route be- 
came a stage line and then a railway, but of the 
several waterways onl}- the Panama continued 
in operation after the gold fever subsided. It 
was not altogether profitable to its project(jrs, 
however. A contract for carrying United States 
mails, from which much was expected, became 



236 MEN OF BUSINESS 

rather a source of difficulties, and there were 
other conflicts, rivalries, enmities of various 
kinds. The company itself was forced into 
bankruptcy, and Mr. Roberts's own losses were 
severe, but he was determined not to be really 
defeated. It was with more than a little exhibi- 
tion of faith and courage that he purchased all 
the sold-out claims of the bankrupt company 
against the government under the mail contract. 
They seemed to be of small value, but he pushed 
them in the courts and before Congress, year 
after year, until at last he obtained a just award 
of over a million of dollars. 

Other enterprises were going forward parallel 
with these. Mr. Roberts was one of the advo- 
cates of the New York, Lake Erie & Western 
( " Erie " ) Railway before a pick was lifted for 
Its construction, and he Avas himself the projector 
of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Rail- 
road. Here and there truly he exhibited even 
too much dash and energy, and there were two 
sides to his exceedingly varied profit-and-loss ac- 
count. His personal friendships were strong, 
his political opinions were vehement, and he was 
by no means always wise in his expressions of 
either. Men whom he trusted did not always 
turn out well, and political as well as commercial 
antagonists were now and then turned into bitter 
personal enemies. On the other hand, his out- 
spoken frankness and his readiness to help made 
him hosts of friends. He was a power in the 
community, even during the long series of years 
when, either as a Whig or a Free-Soiler, the 



MARSHALL 0}YEN ROBERTS 237 

party he belonged to was in a hopeless minority. 
In 1852 he was the Whig nominee for Congress 
in his own district, but was defeated, almost as a 
matter of course. That party was in its deca- 
dence, and Mr. Roberts, moreover, held views 
on the slavery question which deprived him of 
the votes of the more conservative Whigs. 

No better illustration could be offered of his 
character, nor of the estimation in which he was 
held by other enterprising and able men, than 
was given in 1854. When Cyrus W. Field laid 
before Peter Cooper his plan for an ocean tele- 
graphic cable, they two went next to Moses Tay- 
lor, and all three declared that their next choice 
was Marshall O. Roberts. Chandler White made 
up the number until, at his death, he was re- 
placed by Wilson G. Hunt, and these five men 
carried the burdens of the enterprise, so far as 
American support was concerned, until the cable 
was laid. Before a dollar of foreign capital was 
secured, they had paid out over a million of dol- 
lars, very nearly equally divided among them. 

In spite of many losses and of having much 
capital locked up in shapes which were com- 
pelled to wait for the future, Mr. Roberts was 
now a very wealthy man. He was distinguished 
for the liberality with which he aided any object, 
charitable or otherwise, in which he became 
interested, so that he was almost compelled, as 
he said, to fence himself in from innumerable 
applications. 

In one direction there seemed to be hardly any 
limit other than his own very correct judgment, 



238 MEX OF BUSINESS 

now matured and critical, for the city contained 
no other man whose open purse and hearty en- 
couragement was doing so much for American 
artists. He purchased works of art in Europe, 
in many of which he took great pride, but his 
gallery, for which he was at last compelled to 
bu}' and reconstruct the house adjoining his own, 
contained large numbers of the best creations of 
his own countr3'men, including those of more 
than one struggling beginner Avhose merit he 
was one of the first to recognize. 

At no time did Mr. Roberts fail to take an 
active interest in the questions of the day, muni- 
cipal, State, or national. In the former he was 
a well-known figure at public meetings, and his 
name w^as almost as often seen in their printed 
reports as it was upon the subscription lists, for 
it was a period of many kinds of political and 
social " reform " fermentation. He was not a 
writer, and his only claim to oratory was his 
ability and tendency to express his views in the 
briefest and most intelligible form with small 
reference to consequences. 

The anti-slaver)- agitation, more than met bv 
the correspondent turbulence of pro-slavery feel- 
ing and action, was increasing day after day. 
The longer continuance of either of the old 
parties was manifestly becoming impossible. 
Mr. Roberts was not an extremist, not what was 
then described and generally condemned as an 
"abolitionist," but he threw himself heart and 
soul into the movement for the formation of a 
new party, proposing to resist the extension of 



MABSITALL OWEN ROBERTS 239 

human slavery into the new territories under 
process of formation into States. He became a 
trusted friend and supporter of the leaders of the 
movement in New York, such as Morgan, his 
business friend, Seward, Greeley, and their co- 
workers. In 1856 he was sent as a delegate to 
the first great gathering of forces at Pittsburg, 
and then to the Philadelphia National Conven- 
tion which organized the People's party, after- 
ward the Republican party, and nominated 
John C. Fremont for President and William L. 
Dayton for Vice-President. Without ceasing to 
be a business man, or becoming in any wise a 
politician in the ordinary sense of the word, he 
took an intense and very busy interest in the 
development of the new organization. It was 
during the heat and excitement of this period that 
his first great disaster befell him, for he was one 
of the victims of the celebrated " National Hotel 
poisoning case." At a dinner-party at that hotel, 
in Washington, a number of guests were made 
to suffer from some unknown agent in the food 
set before them, some fatally and others to a 
less degree. Various explanations were offered, 
none satisfactory, but after Mr. Roberts re- 
covered the first severe effects, something like 
an undiscoverable poison remained in his system, 
causing him intermittent suffering and undoubt- 
edly shortening his days. It introduced, how- 
ever, a new element into all his subsequent 
dealings with business or with men. Those who 
knew him could not but admire the kindly 
patience with which he attended to multi- 



240 MEN OF BUSINESS 

form affairs and duties while tortured by 
pains of the most racking, irritating character. 
Many a time he would escape from his down- 
town office, go home, and try to endure his tor- 
ments the better as he walked up and down, 
alone or with some friend, from one to another 
of the chosen treasures of his picture-gallery. 
He could almost put away an ache while discuss- 
ing and admiring the genius of a master. 

The next Presidential campaign, in i860, the 
Lincoln campaign, brought Mr. Roberts into al- 
most as much political activity as if he had been 
a party editor or a stump-speaker, and he con- 
tributed considerable sums for the campaign 
expenses of those who were so. With the elec- 
tion of President Lincoln, however, something 
almost like a new career opened before him. 

The muttering thunder of the coming civil 
war could be heard during all the following 
winter, and hostilities had begun, in several places 
and forms, before the inauguration. It was a 
time when timid men held back and when even 
brave men hesitated, but the hot Welsh blood of 
Mr. Roberts was up and he was ready for action. 
He was no soldier, but he could rally and arm 
soldiers, only regretting that he was not to lead 
them in person. He was not a sea-captain, but 
he was a ship-owner, and the country a few da3's 
later needed a swift steam transport to convey 
supplies to the beleaguered garrison of Fort 
Sumter. The Navy Department had no vessel 
ready, nor funds to buy or charter one, but the 
steamer Star of the West was instantly offered 



MARSHALL OWEN ROBERTS 241 

by Mr. Roberts. Her mission failed, indeed, and 
Sumter fell ; but an invaluable example had been 
set, and the patriotism of other men took fire. 
Few and scattered were the forces at the dis- 
posal of the perplexed administration. It could 
not properly garrison a single fort on the coast, 
nor guard the approaches to the capital. There 
were rumors that the all but vitally important 
Fortress Monroe was in danger of sudden seiz- 
ure. Its loss would have been irreparable ; but 
Mr. Roberts had another steamer, the America. 
He raised and equipped a thousand men, the 
America transported them to man the threatened 
fort, and the danger was over. 

It was a busy time for the patriotic merchant, 
for all his enterprises were demanding his ut- 
most attention during the panicky and commer- 
cially disastrous months of the spring of 1861. 
His best energies, however, were given to the 
needs of the government. It had no credit at 
the first, nor money, nor lawful means of obtain- 
ing money or men, but it could have anything 
there was in the hands of Mr. Roberts. It was 
precisely the kind of support needed in that 
hour of terrible strain and peril. It came from 
many men, of many kinds, and it came with the 
strength of a rising tide. Even the Bull Run 
defeat hardly checked it for a moment. After 
that, however, there was a great army in the field 
and many fleets upon the sea, and merchants, 
ship-owners, like Mr. Roberts, were called upon 
to provide and carry supplies and to furnish 
transportations under due forms of law and by 
16 



24:2 MEN OF BUSINESS 

contract. It was altogether in tlie righteous 
process of events that the merchant who had 
given ships and carried men without pay should 
now be compensated as others, and should be 
employed to his uttermost capacity. The patri- 
otic fulfilment of his contracts could be utterly 
relied on, and he received and performed many. 
That his remuneration was very large before 
the end of the long war was an almost inevitable 
consequence not looked forward to by him, or 
by anybody else, in the dark hour when the Star 
of the West recoiled from before the Confeder- 
ate batteries in Charleston Harbor. 

The war ended and the hour of rejoicing over, 
the return of peace was darkened by the assas- 
sination of President Lincoln. The feeling of 
Mr. Roberts, to wiiom the murdered President 
had been a personal friend, was partly expressed 
in a draft for ten thousand dollars sent to the 
Lincoln family. 

In that same year, 1865, Mr. Roberts was the 
Republican candidate for Mayor of New York, 
but was defeated, for the city government was 
overwhelmingly under the control of the political 
opposition. There were especial reasons why 
he was himself less than popular with certain 
classes. Not only was he very rich and lived in 
a magfnificent house, but he had alwavs been 
outspoken in his views concerning every form 
of social disorder. Everybodv had heard the 
storv of his conduct during the horrible draft 
riots of 1863. It was easv to use against him 
the fact that when informed that a detachment of 



MARSHALL OWEN UOBERTS 243 

the mob was coming to burn one of his steamers 
at her wharf, he obtained a brace of brass can- 
non, loaded them to the muzzle with slugs and 
grape-shot, stationed them at the barricade he 
built across the pier, and waited behind them 
with a force of determined men, well armed, 
ready to make the burning of that vessel a 
bloody piece of work. The mob heard about it 
and did not come, but it was not by any means 
forgotten, nor were any of his other vehement 
declarations on behalf of law and order. 

One of his earlier enterprises was now coming 
up in his mind in another form, or rather in sev- 
eral forms. The routes to California had been 
mightily developed both by land and sea, but 
they were not yet perfected. On land Mr. 
Roberts advocated the construction of the Texas 
& Pacific Railroad, invested two millions of 
dollars in the enterprise, and induced other 
capitalists to follow his example. Of the water 
routes, he now selected the old Tehuautepec 
line, over which Hernan Cortes had marched to 
the Pacific, and proposed to construct not only 
a railway, but a ship canal from shore to shore. 

This was but part of a scheme which included 
a ship canal across the Florida peninsula, from a 
point on the St. John's River to the Gulf of Mex- 
ico. Much money was expended in preliminary 
surveys, a company was formed, its stock was 
ready for issue, its bonds were printed and 
partly signed and ready for the American and 
European markets, when, in September, 1873, 
the great panic suddenly swept through the 



244 MEN OF BUSINESS 

financial world, and all such schemes were shat- 
tered. 

The losses of Mr. Roberts were enormous. 
He owed no debts, but much property had van- 
ished and more was either shrivelled in nominal 
value or made temporaril}^ unavailable. An- 
other man might have contented himself with 
enforced retirement from baffled enterprises, but 
there was an especial demand upon the remain- 
ing financial abilities of the veteran merchant. 
He was still ver)' rich and numbers of his old 
friends were in trouble. Sick, suffering, wearv 
in mind and broken in body, he came out from 
among the wrecks of his shattered schemes to 
hold up the men who had been his friends and 
business associates, until the storm should pass 
and they could stand alone. It passed, and 
many things returned to their former condition, 
but for others it was now getting too late in the 
day. There were minor enterprises to which 
attention could be given by Mr. Roberts, both 
in the United States and the Canadas, but they 
were and must be henceforth mainly in the 
hands of other men, for the working days of the 
old merchant were over. He could buy pict- 
ures, encourage artists, help neighbors, but he 
could not again undertake highwa3'S across the 
continent, nor steamship lines on the sea. 

His charities had taken permanent forms in 
several instances, notably in the founding of the 
Women's Christian Association and in the Home 
for Girls, in New York Citv. His treasured gal- 
lery had grown around the germ provided by 



MARSHALL OTf'^.Y ROBERTS 2-i5 

boyish energy and economy, until it contained 
pictures whose value in cash was over three 
quarters of a million of dollars. He had gained 
all that he had ever dreamed of gaining. 

The end came, September ii, 1880, at Sara- 
toga. During several years Mr. Roberts had 
lived in semi-retirement, but his departure called 
forth universal expressions of respect and regret. 
Nevertheless, only a few of even those who 
from time to time had seen him and thought 
they knew him, were aware how very remark- 
able a character, how generous and brave a man, 
had ceased to be numbered among the merchant 
princes of New York. 



XIII. 
GEORGE MORTIMER PULLMAN. 

The world contains a larger population than 
ever before. No doubt the most interesting 
illustration of the increase is offered by the com- 
posite millions collected, by birth or immigra- 
tion, within the boundaries of the United States, 
the latest constructed of the nationalities of the 
first rank. A study of the American people, 
grade for grade and class for class, reveals the 
fact that their condition, as compared with cor- 
responding grades and classes of any of the old- 
time civilizations, is vastly improved. Every 
description of human life above grovelling pau- 
perism enjoys more and more varied comfort 
and a more plentiful and regular support than 
was formerly possible. Very similar is the state 
of things to be discovered in most parts of Eu- 
rope, and to a less degree even in wide areas of 
Asia under European control. France, for in- 
stance, supports, in generally prosperous condi- 
tions, at the close of the nineteenth century, four 
times the population that could with difficulty 
be kept alive upon the same area only two cen- 
turies earlier. 

Whatever other causes ma}" be credited with 
any share in the manifest increase of the means 





I ^' -'^ 




George Mortimer Pullman. 



GEORGE MORTIMER PULLMAN 247 

of living, one is admittedly beyond dispute. It 
is the marv^ellous increase in the varied occupa- 
tions provided for skill and labor, that is, in the 
employments by means of which men and women 
earn the means of employing other men and 
women. It has been unthinkingly remarked 
that we have more needs than formerly, that new 
wants have been created for us, and that so our 
modern life is artificial, as compared with the 
half-starved simplicity of the ancient times. It 
is very much more near the truth to reply that 
the wants of human nature have been discovered, 
step by step, like new lands lying westward, and 
that each newly found need and its provision 
has led on to other discoveries. Sure it is that 
but for the men who have opened new channels 
for industry, new employments for busv thou- 
sands, the unemployed multitudes must perish. 
Each of these men is, therefore, in his place, a 
public benefactor. He is so even more dis- 
tinctly than the man who attains success, how- 
ever eminent, in handling or directing means of 
occupation already created. He is so in a yet 
higher degree, if the new ideas by which he 
operates and the new occupations which are 
provided are themselves in the line of social ad- 
vancement and elevation. It is not always, 
however, that the originator adds to his inven- 
tive genius the administrative and other busi- 
ness faculties to be the master-machinist and 
supervising architect of his own plans. 

George Mortimer Pullman was born upon a 
farm in Chautauqua County, New York, March 



248 MEX OF BiTSINJSSS 

3, 1831. His taiiiilv were in niotlerate circum- 
stances and were able to give him no more edu- 
cational advantages than were provided bv the 
local schools. These, however, were of good 
qualit3\ His home training was such as to aid 
him in the formation of fixed habits of industry 
and firmlv settled principles of morality and in- 
tegrity. While not large in frame, he possessed 
an unusual degree of bodilv toughness and ac- 
tivity, which was well developed bv the whole- 
some work belonging to the dailv " chores " 
of a farmer's boy. On the whole, his primarv 
schooling of all sorts was peculiarlv well de- 
vised for the kind of life before him. At the 
early age of fourteen he began to look out 
for himself, and his first service was as boy- 
of-all-work in a countrv store. At seventeen 
he went to Albion. N. Y., where an older 
brother was alreadv established in the cabinet- 
making business. Here a very important ap- 
prenticeship was served, for he learned what 
could be done usefully and ornamentallv with 
wood and woven fabrics, and obtained ideas 
concerning the art and the varied appliances of 
upholstering. All was to be of use to him at a 
later day, but with his lessons in taste and the 
like he acquired much information of another 
kind. He learned something of engineering and 
mechanics, and through a series of minor expe- 
riences he acquired strong confidence in his own 
ability for devising mechanical wavs and means. 
He even jirc^spered pecuniarilv, through constant 
thrift and industry, so that upon becoming of 



GEORGE MORTIMER PULLMAN 249 

age he had a few dollars of his own to begin 
business with. 

The fii'st good opportunity did not present 
itself until a year later, but it was coming and 
he was preparing for it. The Erie Canal was in 
process of widening. The buildings of all sorts 
which had been put up along the margins of 
what was at first derisively described as DeWitt 
Clinton's Ditch were to be torn down or moved 
away. Many of them manifestly called for the 
former process, but there were considerable 
warehouses of brick as well as of wood that were 
worth saving, and yoimg Pullman made con- 
tracts for their transfer to new positi(jns. The 
operation was less hazardous than it seemed, 
and his complete success not only rewarded 
him pecuniarily, but gave him experience and a 
record which was shortly to be of great value. 
Contract followed contract, and Mr. Pullman was 
doing very well in other ways than house-mov- 
ing, but this was for the time his specialty, and 
the great field for it was not in New York. At 
the foot of Lake Michigan a new cit}^ had sprung 
up with such rapidity that it was there before 
any suitable arrangements had been made for it. 
Its lower floors were but little, in some places not 
at all, above the level of the lake, and so Chicago 
could have no sewers. It was necessary to be- 
gin again, and the entire place must be lifted 
several feet. There were great blocks of busi- 
ness buildings, brick or stone, which must be 
held up while new cellars and foundations were 
put under them. Through the earlier stages of 



250 3{E]Sr OF BUSINESS 

the process Mr. Pullman's business detained 
him in New York, but in 1859 '^^ removed to 
Chicago to take his share in the general marvel 
of new-city engineering. He had, however, an- 
other idea growing in his mind, and had already 
begun a series of practical experiments for its 
accomplishment. 

The railroad system of the United States was 
yet in the first stages of its development. It had 
begun timidly, experimentally, with short lines 
between important places, and its management 
had been marked, as a rule, by the most per- 
nicious economy. It is true that improvement 
began at once, for the first American locomo- 
tives, designed and built by Peter Cooper at 
Baltimore, were especiall)^ adapted to American 
roads. The primitive " strap " rail, spiked upon 
a log, had given place to the T heavy rail. The 
later cars were not altogether so uncomfortable 
as were the travelling cribs to which the term 
" hyena " had somehow attached. The process 
of consolidation had begun, for the seven roads 
across middle New York, for instance, had 
become one corporation, as the New York 
Central. The extension of Western lines was 
going on rapidly and the days of " long-dis- 
tance " railroading were at hand. For that 
reason so were the daA's of express companies, 
through-freight lines, and improved passenger 
cars, up to this time impossible. 

During the year 1858 Mr. Pullman's attention 
had been especially drawn to the long-distance 
sleeping-car idea. He had often enough seen 



GEORGE MORTIMER PULLMAN 251 

such as were in use, but one comfortless night, 
during a sixty-mile ride from Buffalo to West- 
tield, he was forced to lie awake and consider 
the defects of such machines as he was carried 
in. They were indeed unsatisfactory affairs, for 
they were nothing but enlarged copies of the 
night-bunks in the passenger boats of the Erie 
Canal, three tiers of shelves on each side of the 
car. They were to be slept in as a rule, and if 
passengers were wise, without too much un- 
dressing. They were peculiarly easy to get out 
of in going around sharp curves or aided by the 
sudden oscillations of cars with imperfect springs 
on badly ballasted roads. 

The thoughts which began to germinate dur- 
ing that night ride, or earlier, did not come up 
into sight until the following year. After Mr. 
Pullman entered upon his Chicago business he 
continued to study the subject. He began a 
series of preliminary experiments by remodel- 
ling two day -coaches on the Chicago & Alton 
Road, and afterward did the same on the old 
Galena Road. He met with very little encour- 
agement, for in a very strict use of the word he 
was a pioneer. The sleeping-cars in use were 
invariably the property of the road they ran on, 
and their trips were limited to its own rails. 
The fares charged varied fi'om fifty cents a 
berth, or a dollar for a double berth, to a dollar 
and a half on longer runs, but they were not re- 
garded as especially profitable. The simple fact 
was that no attention had been given to the idea 
of making long-distance railroading enjoyable. 



252 MEX OF BUSINESS 

Its latiii^iics, (lisconilorls, positixc miseries, its 
tletriments to health and its waste ot workini^ 
energies, had been accepted as unavoidable, as 
mere matters of course. A long journey was 
known to be a \ong suffering, and its martyrs 
must endure to the end. unless they should die 
on the way. 

An entirely different conception of the future 
of American passenger transportation had now 
taken possession of Mr. Pullman. With only 
limited mechanical skill, he had acquired a large 
fund of varied mechanical knowledge, much of 
which, beginning with the Albion cabinet-mak- 
ing shop, was in the direct line of his proposed 
invention. He did his part in the elevation of 
Chicago to its new level, adding considerably to 
the capital required for other undertakings, but 
it was 1863 before he was readv to elevate him- 
self entirely to his new enterprise. 

A suitable shop was now hired, a competent 
master-mechanic was emploved, with skilled 
workmen under him, and thev began the some- 
what tedious task of constructing a new car to 
meet the requirements of a man whose concep- 
tion of what it should be grew while it was 
building. He gave all the details his personal, 
constant supervision during long months of toil. 
The changes were radical, for he was not think- 
ing merely of show. 

The steadiness required for sleep was to be 
obtained by powerful springs upon trucks with 
sixteen wheels, altogether an innovation. xA.s to 
the beds, they were to be as those of a good 



GEORGE MORTIMER PULLMAN 



253 



hotel, and the general outfit was to be that of a 
drawing-room. Only a faint idea ol the im- 
provement was ex- 
pressed by the fact 
that while one of 
the old " rattlers " 
cost $4,000, Car A, 
the " Pioneer " of 
the Pullman cars, 
cost $18,000. Oth- 
er men called it 
\ uselessly extraya- 
I gant, but in his 
i eyes it was only 
\ too plain, and it 

- still lacked many 
= of the conveni- 
ences belonging to 

\ the cars w h i c h 

- were building in 
I his mind. Relief 

from fatigue ; pure 
air secured by 
good ventilation ; 
greater safety of 
life and limb from 
accidents ; person- 
al cleanliness ; 
special care of pas- 
sengers in need of 
care ; refreshments by the ^vay, and at last a 
complete hotel on wheels, rolling on over road 
after road, across the continent, after roads and 




25J: MEN OF BUSINESS 

bridges should be provided ; all was taking form, 
as the advantages and defects of the pioneer car 
were studied, from day to day. 

Other people were examining the matter, es- 
peciallv railroad men, and the president of the 
Michigan Central Road, Mr. James F. Joy, was 
nearlv willing to trv the experiment on his own 
line. A\'ith a view to this, Mr. Pullman con- 
structed four more cars, but each of these cost 
$24,000, and even Mr. Joy was startled bv such 
manifest extravagance. It would divert travel 
from his road if so high a rate as §2 per berth 
were charged upon its sleeping-cars. In re- 
ply to his objection, Mr. Pullman put in verbal 
shape one of the leading ideas of his business 
career, that the best was really the cheapest, and 
that all people were w^illing to pay for it if they 
could get it. The dispute ended in a compro- 
mise, for the new cars were put upon trial on 
the road, each with one of the cheaper cars for a 
running mate. The problem was solved in a 
few weeks, for the old cars were alwavs empty 
until the new were filled, and the public loudly 
expressed the disgust occasioned by the unpleas- 
ant comparison. Mr. Pullman had undoubtedlv 
made a great invention, but it was one for which 
there was manifestly no patent. He could not 
hope, men said, to obtain a monopolv of the con- 
struction of his magnificent cars. Each road 
might build its own and run them. Each car- 
constructing concern would be a rival in the 
business. It w^ould, after all, be limited. Only 
a few roads w'ould undertake so orreat an inno- 



GEORGE MORTIMER PULLMAN 255 

vation. The idea was good enough, but there 
was no money in it. It was absurd to suppose 
that one central concern would be permitted to 
manage the sleeping-car service of any consider- 
able part of the roads in the country. Numerous, 
indeed, were the cavils and objections which Mr. 
Pullman was compelled to meet when he made 
his next step forward. He could see, and won- 
dered that others could not, that the very nat- 
ure of long-distance railroading rendered neces- 
sary a consolidation of the sleeping-car interests. 
There might be, probably would be, indepen- 
dent builders and independent lines, but to all 
these would surely apply the severe doctrine of 
the survival of the fittest. 

There were several points in favor of Mr. Pull- 
man's comprehensive scheme from the outset, 
whatever were the obstacles. He had been able 
to try his preliminary experiments at his own 
expense, without losing control of the subse- 
quent operations by selling " interests " at too 
early a dav. He was, therefore, the one-man 
power, unhindered. 

The size of the countr}- and the length of its 
railway journeys was like a permanent founda- 
tion for his enterprise. The very refusal of other 
men, at first, to see as he did, kept the field clear 
for his operations until he had securelv occupied 
it. Added to all this, and utilizing it, was his 
owni personal character and capacity. His ad- 
ministrative faculties were of a high order, fit- 
ting him for the selection and direction of ca- 
pable associates and subordinates. His inven- 



250 MEN OF BUSINESS 

tive power enabled him to respoiitl to eaeh dis- 
covered requirement witii some sufficient device, 
and of these inventions a number were patent- 
able, protectino;- him to an important extent from 
rivalries and interferences. Hardly of less im- 
portance were his singular steadiness, freedom 
from the fever of speculation or mere money- 
getting ; patience under difficulties, and entire 
devotion to his business for its own sake. It 
was to be his life-work, and he was conscientious- 
ly determined to do it well. 

It w'ould not be easy to form or give an ade- 
quate idea of the diplomacy, tact, energy, or 
financial ability displayed in the operations fol- 
lowing the first success of 1863. Mr, Pullman 
almost lived on the railroads, as he went from 
one to another, without a car of his own making 
to travel in. It was well for him that his natural 
toughness had become increased rather than di- 
minished in his ripe manhood. He was at this 
time very well fitted for the kind of diplomacy 
he was engaged in, with railway managers, finan- 
ciers, even politicians, statesmen, and their het- 
erogeneous associates. He was a quiet man, 
of courteous manners, always well dressed and 
always apparently in good humor. He was a 
good talker, with an excellent faculty for making 
other men talk and for listening w^ell, and he 
never seemed to be tired. 

Success came step by step, and the Pullman 
cars were an acknowledged institution of Amer- 
ican railway travel. Year after year invention 
after invention, comfort after comfort, the ideas 



GEORGE }rORTnrER PULLMAN 257 

ol the inventor and nianag-er, were made to take 
shape in wood and metal or other fabrics, or in 
the personal service of the svstem. 

Vet another invention, however, had been 
growing toward completeness in the mind of 
Mr. Pullman. He had established a successful 
manufacturing company, and it had shops at 
St. Louis, Mo.; Elmira, N. Y. ; Detroit, Mich., 
and Wilmington, Del. It could command a great 
deal of assistance, in cases of need, from other 
manufacturers, but all was not enough to keep 
pace with the swift growth of the demand. It 
was with reference to this necessity for larger 
and better shops and their workmen that Mr. 
Pullman made his next achievement, for he in- 
vented a new town and proceeded with its con- 
struction very much as, in 1863, he had put 
together the Pioneer, 

With reference to all the objects proposed, the 

best attainable locality for a new town would be 

in or near Chicago, but the selling price of every 

acre of land in that vicinity had been fixed with 

reference to the values of the time to come. An 

attempt to purchase any considerable area would 

surely cause a speculative advance, and so the 

entire project was kept secret while a cautious 

purchasing process went on through another 

hand than Mr. Pullman's. The spot chosen was 

well beyond the city limits, as they were in 1879, 

on the shore of Calumet Lake. About thirty- 

tive hundred acres of bare prairie were at last 

secured, at an outlay of less than eight hundred 

thousand dollars, and then, in 1880, the work of 
17 



258 3IEN OF BUSINESS 

construction began. The Chicago experience 
was not to be repeated, for the tirst thing at- 
tended to was the establishment of a permanent 
" grade," sufihciently above the original prairie 
and lake levels to provide for a system of drain.- 
age. The sewers came first, with a force of four 
thousand men to put them in place. Then came 
the water-mains, and the other piping for which 
it is customary to tear up city thoroughfares so 
extensively. The streets and avenues were then 
put on, and along the lines of these lay the orig- 
inal levels, ready to be cut up into cellars and 
filled up for back-yards and ornamental grounds, 
as occasion might require. Of course, Mr. Pull- 
man called in the best architectural and other 
trained ability that he could obtain ; but no other 
American town was ever created in precisely 
this manner. Perhaps as near a historical par- 
allel as any is that furnished by the Egyptian 
seaport called into existence by the far-seeing 
genius of Alexander. 

Every shop previously put up elsewhere for 
the operations of the Pullman Company had been 
as an experiment, providing valuable suggestions 
which were to be availed of now. No part of 
them had been of more evident importance than 
were such as related to the personal character 
and conduct of the force of workingmen to be 
employed. It was to this, therefore, that Mr. 
Pullman's inventions largely related. It was to 
be a town whose inhabitants should govern 
themselves in the direction of good morals, in- 
telligence, and prosperity. The very proposition 



GEORGE MORTIMER PULLMAN 259 

seemed to be ridiculous, but so had been the 
palace sleeping-car and travelling-hotel system, 
until its success revolutionized long-distance rail- 
way travel. The idea of the new town was to 
be the same — that men and women were quite 
willing to have the best things if they could get 
them at reasonable prices. Nothing was to be 
given away. The false charity which fosters 
any kind of pauperism was to be shunned as a 
positive evil. Anything approaching the " pater- 
nal " or lord of the manor supervision of free 
Americans was to be studiously avoided. The 
best opportunities for industry and thrift were 
to be provided, but personal independence and 
responsibility were not to be interfered with. 

The domain of the Pullman Company, the 
nucleus of the pi'oposed city, was not to be sold 
at any price, but to remain under absolute con- 
trol, for here the prevailing tone and character 
was to be established. 

Shops for the manufacture of all kinds of rail- 
way cars and their outfits were put up rapidly 
but very solidly. So were admirably planned 
dwellings, separate or in flats, homes or board- 
ing-houses for workers. Stores and workshops of 
all varieties common in an American town were 
provided. In all, the useful and the attractive 
were equally sought for, both in the buildings 
and their surroundings. Leases were given to 
acceptable occupants, each lease terminable upon 
ten days' notice on either side. A dissatisfied 
tenant, or one for any reason disposed to change, 
was not bound to remain. On the other hand, 



260 MEN OF BUSINESS 

no structure owned by the company could be 
used for detrimental purposes. No worthy ten- 
ant has ever been disturbed, but a remarkable 
result has been obtained, for hei'e is now a town 
of twelve thousand inhabitants in which there is 
no drinking-saloon nor one house of ill repute. 

Among- the iirst buildings erected were two 
churches, but these were not " given " to the con- 
gregations meeting in them. Their use is paid 
for. Only the public librar}^ now of about eight 
thousand volumes, is the individual gift of Mr, 
Pullman, that it might be selected upon rational 
principles and not collected hit or miss and lum- 
bered with unreadable rubbish. 

There are grounds for athletic sports, a great 
"arcade" building for general shopping, an ad- 
mirable market building, a public school-house 
attended by over a thousand scholars, and at 
every turn an observer is compelled to acknowl- 
edge the operation of intelligent design, provid- 
ing for the present and the future by omitting 
the chance-medley blunders of the past in other 
town-makings. 

A channel, now dredging to the depth re- 
quired, will shortly make Calumet Lake a harbor 
of the great lake system, and Pullman will be a 
port of entry. Outside of the original area a 
continual building goes on, in strict relation to 
the founder's plan, excepting that here over a 
thousand dwellings are owned by workmen in 
the employ of the company. 

It was in tlic primal idea that good wages 
should be paid, that all rents should be reason- 



GEORGE MORTIMER PULLMAN 



261 



ably low, that food - supplies should be of the 
best and at fair prices, but there was something 
more than this. Mr. Pullman believed that his 
cars were an educational agency, positively im- 
proving the tone of the people who rode in them 
by the influence of surroundings. 
In like manner he sought to foster 
self-respect among the inhabitants 
of his town. Whatever work they 
might do to earn their wages, the 
place they lived in must show 
them nothing unsightly or un- 






i 

"^"l 






■■•■ -tiroiirt 

■_;<iiiiii(Blii!!!ir 



A View of Pullman, 



clean or pernicious, so far as he could prevent 
it. Beautv, order, convenience were to be con- 
tinual teachers, and their opposites were at least 
to be crippled. 

After a dozen years of practical working, the 
question of the success of the invention is partly 
answered in figures. Of the twelve thousand in- 
habitants, 6,324 are employed by the company. 
The average wages of these, including boys and 
women, are $2.26 per da v. Thev have deposits 
amounting to §632,000 in the savings bank, or an 
average of $316 to each person. The eight miles of 



20 2 MEN OF BUSINESS 

paved streets in the town of Pullman are scrupu- 
lously clean, and so is its moral character, and 
workmen from its shops are sought for as men 
who have a well-known certificate. 

The car-shops are by no means the onlv indus- 
try created. For instance, the clay under the 
lake makes excellent bricks, and thirty million 
of these are manufactured per annum. 

Considered financially, the business success of 
Mr. Pullman is hardl}^ exceeded by that of any 
other living man. Other men are his peers in 
railway enterprises or exceed him in accumulated 
wealth, but the distinguishing feature of his own 
achievement is its originality. He saw a coming 
demand, merely germinal at the beginning, and 
he developed it by the manner in which he sup- 
plied it. There is no other business career offer- 
ing an exact parallel. As to numerical illustra- 
tions, the gross earnings of the company in its 
first fiscal year were $280,000, while for 1891-92 
they were $10,002,356.04. Its dividends were 
$2,300,000, and it added $3,250,389 to its surplus 
fund. Upon all its roads the company emplovs 
2,512 sleeping-, parlor-, and dining-cars, but this 
does not include some that are running in other 
lands, for instance, upon the roads of Australia. 
During the 3^ear ending July i, 1892, Pullman 
cars carried 5,279,320 passengers, and the rates 
of speed, the safety, and the comfort must be 
made factors in any estimate of the indicated use. 
The number of miles run was 191,255,656, which 
means that one Pullman car doing it all could 
have visited the sun and returned, and then 



GEORGE MORTIMER PULLMAN 263 

gone more than half-way around the earth. 
The longest regular, unbroken run made by 
Pullman cars, however, is that of 4,332 miles, 
from Boston to Los Angeles. 

The shop-town of Pullman and the palace- 
hotel-car system, taken together, present an ex- 
ceedingly readable illustration of the great mar- 
vel of human life and work : that is, of the man- 
ner in which a mental picture, a conception, 
arising in the mind of a capable man, may be 
brought out and put into material shape for the 
lavSting benefit of other men. 



XIV. 
PETER COOPER. 

A GREAT evil, not unmixed with good, to the 
great mass of the world's labor force is the man- 
ner in which it has seemed forced to move on 
along unchanging grooves, the deeply worn ruts 
of old-time travel. Among Oriental nations, to 
this da}^, we see the most perfect illustrations of 
a tendency which divides labor, and with it life, 
into fixed strata, which are castes in one place 
and guilds in another. The specific faculties of 
varied trades, as well as the individual right to 
live by them, are declared an inheritance, de- 
scending from father to son. In other parts of 
the world — in Europe, for instance — there is a 
plainly related state of things and there is an 
evident danger of its importation to this coun- 
try. Already we have the guilds, in one form 
or another, with a manifest caricature of the 
castes, and outside of them we have an increas- 
ing multitude of pariahs destitute of trade con- 
nections. It was not so in the beginning of our 
national work; is not so now in our recently 
lormed comminiities, and it is one of the fossil- 
isms which we do not need to copy from either 
the Middle Ages, the Hindoos, or the Chinese. 

Another illustration of the same natural ten- 




Petei Cooper 



PETER COOPER 2i'>ti 

(lency, or caused by the long- oiJeration of the 
iiulicated evil, is seen in the helplessness with 
which the lives of so nian\- men run in their ac- 
cidental trades or occupations as on tramways, 
outside of which thev can hardly run at all. A 
contrast, if he is not also a result, is furnished by 
the not uncommon character of whom it is said 
that he is Jack of all trades and master of none. 

There is, indeed, a well understood advantage 
to be obtained by persistent devotion to one 
wisely chosen field of thought and action, even 
if the worker in it believes both himself and his 
field to be narrowly fenced in. The men are few 
whose natural capacities include that of a gen- 
eral adaptability in any high degree. 

The changing conditions and the rapid growth 
of our own country have presented innumerable 
object-lessons in successes and in failures. It 
has been proved to be a sufficiently general rule 
that a man going into a new place will do well 
to take his trade with him, if he really has one, 
and with it a species of watchful inquiry as to 
what it can be improved into or changed for. 

Strictly in accordance with the rule is the ap- 
pearance, here and there, of men for whom each 
new set of circumstances seems to call up and 
set in motion within them something which had 
not previously presented itself, but which meets 
the demands of the occasion. They add to their 
other capacities the genius of versatility and so 
are able to win success among changing condi- 
tions. 

Peter Cooper was born February 12, 1791, in 



260 MEN OF BUSINESS 

the citv of New York. This was, at that (kite, 
a fairlv thriving" community and was beginning 
to recover from the disasters which had befallen 
it, as a garrisoned military post, during the long 
years of the war h^r independence. It had very 
few manufactures, however, and all business 
affairs were conducted under serious disadvan- 
tages, owing to the disordered condition of ct>m- 
merce and the absence of a stable or uniform 
currency. 

Peter's father had been a hatter before the 
war, but had left his trade to serve in the Conti- 
nental army, rising to the rank of lieutenant. It 
was a patriotic family, for Peter's grandfather 
also was a soldier of the Revolution. On his 
mother's side the same honorable recoi'd was 
made. Her father, John Campbell, a successful 
potter and at one time an alderman of the city, 
left all to serve his counti'v as a deput\- (]uarter- 
master-general, and there was no more difficult 
post to hll among the forces under Washington. 
From hrst to last their most dangerous enemy 
was famine, rather than the British. It is related 
that Mr. Campbell's cash advances for army sup- 
plies, to a considerable amount, were refunded 
to him at last in Continental currency — waste- 
paper. It was owing to the war, therefore, that 
the Cooper family was anything but prosperous. 
The returned soldier tried to be again a hatter, 
under difficulties, and his little son began to earn 
something as soon as his head had risen to the 
level of a work-bench. His earliest memory of 
that " hard time " was of pulling hair from rab- 



PETER COOPER 267 

bit skins, with some uncertainty remaining as to 
what it was for. Men with larger capital and 
better relations to the fur trade absorbed the 
hatter business, 'and Mr. Cooper removed to 
Peekskill. He had some knowledge of the brew- 
ing business and set up a small brewery, but 
Peter's schooling was sadly interfered with by 
the duty now upon him of delivering the full ale- 
kegs to customers and bringing home the empty 
ones. The results of this experiment were dis- 
couraging and there was another removal to 
Catskill, where occasional employment as a 
hatter could be alternated with brick-making. 
Peter was getting older and stronger now, and 
could carry and turn bricks, but there was no 
great market for them, nor much profit in their 
manufacture. There is something pathetic in 
the bald outlines preserved of the successive 
struggles of the old Continental soldier to 
maintain his family. The next removal was to 
Brooklyn, where the hatter's trade was once 
more resorted to for a while, and then there 
was another change, for a brewery was set up at 
Newburg, and Peter did not go to work in it. 

He was now, in the year 1808, seventeen years 
of age, and his entire schooling was measured 
b}' half-days of attendance at common schools, 
such as they were, during one year. How 
deeply he felt, then and afterward, the lack of 
the teaching and discipline obtained by others 
he was yet to record for the benefit of thousands. 
Without teachers or books, however, the shifting 
toil and trial of his earlier years had aroused and 



268 ^^.y OF BUSINESS 

developed some of his taciilties to a remarkable 
degree. He was now ai^prenticed, until heshoidd 
become ot age. to John Woodward, a carriage- 
maker, to learn the trade, but he did much more 
than that. He at once began to see and to 
remedy the defective nature of the ver}- tools he 
was taught the use of. The davs of labor-saving 
machinerv were but just beginning and there 
was abundant room for improvements in almost 
anv direction. Peter Cooper was still a mere 
apprentice-bov. when he invented a machine for 
mortising hubs of wagon-wlieels. The profit ac- 
crued to his employer rather than to himself, 
but at the expiration of the apprenticeship, in 
1812, Mr. Woodward proposed to continue him in 
the carriage business. Neither the terms nor the 
prospect were satisfactory, however, and young 
Cooper had seen yet another machine which had 
aroused his interest. It was an improvement in 
cloth-shearing machinerv. and there was a sudden 
impulse given at that time to the cloth industry 
of the United States, for foreign goods were shut 
out by the war with England. Cooper settled at 
Hempstead. Long Island, to engage in the manu- 
facture of the new machines, and he met with ex- 
cellent success. He mademonev enough to buv 
the right for the entire State ; he added important 
improvements of his own invention, and he mar- 
ried Sarah Bedell, of Hempstead, who was to be 
his invaluable partner and helper during fifty-two 
years that followed. 

The war with England came to an end. and the 
importation of British goods, renewed after so 



PETER COOPER 269 

long a suspension, very nearly ruined the young 
manufactures of the Ignited States. There \yas 
to l)e no more demand for the shearing machines, 
but the shop was there, with many appliances, 
which made it easy for a keen inyentor to change 
it into a small factory of cabinet-ware and furni- 
ture. By doing so, the seyerest losses threatened 
by the return of peace and of British competition 
were ayoided. Nevertheless, it was plain thai 
nothing important could be accomplished by a 
cabinet factory in the dull old town of Hemp- 
stead. He had only put his property into good 
and salable condition, and sold it as soon as he 
could find a purchaser. He had now a moderate 
capital and was able to make a beginning in the 
grocery business in the cit}- of New York. It 
was a time of financial prostration and distress 
the world over, and there was small prospect for 
success against the competition which struggled 
hungrily for all the trade offering. No direct 
success was won, but the very articles he bought 
and sold brought their own suggestions to the 
mind of Peter Cooper. As he handled them, 
from day to day, he acquired knowledge to 
which ideas of improvement at once attached. 
Defective qualities and prices which hindered 
consumpticMi seemed to call for better sources of 
supply and improved methods of manufacture. 
A series of exceedingly valuable ideas, therefore, 
may be regarded as the net profits of the grocery 
business, at the date when Mr. Cooper went out 
of it. 

On the old " Middle Road," away out of 



270 MEX OF BUSIXESS 

town, as the tt)\vn was then, and between 
Thirty -tirst and Thirty - fourth Streets, as it is 
now, there was a piece of land that was held on 
a " twentv-one years' lease." It was obtained 
upon easy terms, and a moderate beginning 
was made of a factory for improyed glue 
and other matters, including isinglass, oil, whit- 
ing, and prepared chalk. To each product 
and to all the details of its manufacture Mr. 
Cooper brought the peculiar acuteness of per- 
ception or inyention, which continually enabled 
him to control the market by the quality of the 
goods he presented. During a long period of 
patient effort he actually did present them to 
customers in person, but such a business was sure 
to grow, and his day of prosperity finally came. 
The old lease expired and the land returned to 
its owner ; but that had been expected. Ten 
acres on Maspeth Ayenue, Brooklyn, had been 
purchased, and here the factory was set up, to re- 
main till the present day, with its many improye- 
ments within and without. 

If the numerous exhibitions of mental readi- 
ness to meet the demands of the glue business 
appeared to be all within old lines, the next 
yenture went widely out beyond tiicm, for Mr. 
Cooper had been studying the condition and 
]irospects of American iron mining and manu- 
facture, with whateyer other industries were 
nearly related to them. The corporate limits of 
the city of Baltimore extended oyer a wide 
area, much of which was apparently beyond all 
prospect t)f " city " deyelopment. In 1828. there- 



PETRIl rOOPER 



271 




fore, Mr. Cooper was 
able to obtain control 
of not less than three 
thousand acres within 
the municipality. It 
was not intended for 
residences, but as the 
eastern depot and 
workshop of the coal 
and iron field, about 
to be reached by the 
Baltimore cS: Ohio 
Railroad, then build- 
iui^. It was a remark- 
able instance of busi- 
ness forecast, but it 
was accompanied l)y 
a yet more remark- 
able exhibition of 
mechanical and in- 
ventive genius. The 
science of railway 
construction was in 
its earliest infancv, 
and there were no 
r a i 1 w a y engineers 
such as would now 
be intrusted with the 
varied problems of a 
proposed route. The 
road which was to 
connect the i r o n 
mines and the West 



272 MEN OF BUSINESS 

with Baltimore must be constructed through 
a i'ui;"U"ed reg'ion where the probable cost per 
mile threatened the enterprise with bankrupt- 
cy. Between high grades or deep and costlv 
cuts, on the one hand, and short levels, sharp 
curves, and difficult running, on the other, the 
entire undertaking seemed a foredoomed fail- 
ure. Something like disaster would, indeed, 
have befallen it if it had not been for Peter 
Cooper, who was busily erecting and perfecting 
the Canton Iron Works upon his Baltimore 
acres. He had intended to manufacture steam 
engines there, and he had devised new ones 
better adapted to American roads than were any 
as yet attainable. From his owni plans, and em- 
bodying his own perception of what was needed, 
he now constructed the first locomotive ever 
made in the United States. It was a complete 
success, and it saved the railway enterprise, for 
it made the zigzag track available. At the same 
time, however, the future prosperity of the Can- 
ton Iron Works was assured. Not that Mr. 
Cooper remained in Baltimore to manage them, 
however, for he sold the works, taking a large 
part of his pay in shares, at a nominal value of 
$44, to hold until they were finally sold at $230. 
There w'as, as he perceived, another important 
iron centre at New York, and here he erected 
works for the manufacture of wire and other 
products, but at every step he discovered or ap- 
plied some new idea. Perhaps the most impor- 
tant of all was the first success, in the Cooper 
works, after numberless failures elsewhere, in 



PETER COOPER 



273 




Peter Cooper's Locomotive, 1829. 



the use of anthracite coal for puddling purposes^ 
It rendered available many an otherwise useless 
mountain of both coal and iron. The inventions 

brought to him were in- 
deed numerous, and the 
experiments were end- 
less, but there was some- 
thing to be learned often 
from failures, while ideas 
that were crude when 
brought to Mr. Cooper 
were likely to develop 
all the value in them 
under his inspection. It was a matter of 
course, perhaps, that a successful iron-master 
sh(^uld reach out into New Jersey, and, in 1845, 
at Phillipsburg, N. J., near Easton, Pa., Mr. 
Cooper built three blast-furnaces, the largest 
then in the countrv, purchased the Andover 
mines, and built eight miles of connecting rail- 
way. Other men were building furnaces here 
and there, and rolling-mills, but Mr. Cooper was 
also investigating the important subject of fire- 
proof buildings and the substitution of iron 
beams and girders and other work for wood. At 
his works, therefore, the first examples of the 
new building materials were made, and a vast 
amount of architecture w-as provided for that 
was otherwise im|)racticablc'. 

During all these \ears the bvisv mind of Mr. 
Cooper did not content itself with the manage- 
ment of his private business, lie took a warm 

interest in local politics, so far as these in any 
18 



274 MEN OF BUSINESS 

way related to any manner (jt improvement. The 
old pumps and wells which during sO many 
generations had supplied the people of New 
York with water, were manifestly insufficient 
either for the present or the future. The city 
was almost at the mercy of fires. Its means for 
quenching thirst threatened to become a source 
and propagator of disease. Its manufacturers 
had before them an impassable barrier at the 
point where their water was measured for tiiem. 

North of Manhattan Island, on the Westchester 
mainland, there were pure streams and lakes 
among the hills, and if these could be utilized 
the problem would be solved. 

There were not only engineering difficulties in 
the w^ay, but legislative obstacles and slow stu- 
pidities that now seem hardly credible. To the 
entire subject, in all its parts and shapes, a vast 
amount of intelligent attention was given by the 
iron-master and factory-owner, who seemed to 
have less time than other men for any business 
but his own. He was memorably prominent 
among the public-spirited citizens who had so 
hard a struggle in carrying to success the plans 
for the Croton aqueduct and for the accomplish- 
ment of the novel idea, to New Yorkers, of " a 
spring in every house." 

Parallel with the efforts to obtain ])ure and 
plentiful water, another work went on, with re- 
sults which must be eternal. The city was 
swarming with children for whom no suitable 
means of obtaining even a })rimar\- education were 
provided. The heart of a man whose own boy- 



PETER COOPER 275 

hood had been even less aided went out to them. 
A society for the promotion of public schools 
was organized, with Peter Cooper as one of its 
trustees and most vigorous working members. 
The attention of the association was first given 
to the existing schools, such as they were, and to 
the study of better developed systems in opera- 
tion elsewhere. Adequate legislation was then 
obtained for the foundation upon which the 
New York school system of the present day was 
to be built up through successive advances. 
Mr. Cooper's ceaseless activity at every stage of 
the tedious movement made it almost a matter 
of course that he should be named as one of 
the city's first Board of Commissioners of Public 
Schools. Thenceforward, there was a ijreat deal 
of what might almost be described as inven- 
tion to be performed before the boys and girls 
were endowed with the educational advantages 
they required, but which had not been within 
the reach of the first generation after the Revo- 
lution. 

It was in the direct line of his efforts for the 
attainment of these results, and of other munici- 
pal reforms, that Mr. Cooper was first elected 
a Councilman, and then an Alderman, as his 
grandfather had been in the old Colonial times. 
It was as if the record of the family was to be 
inseparably connected with that of the city 
itself, but yet another memorial was in a process 
of inventive creation. It was one to the last 
degree expressive of the character of the man 
who devised it. It was simply impossible for 



276 MEN OF BUSINESS 

him to take hold ot a piece of mechanism, hardl)^ 
of a manufactured article, without searcliing 
for, if not always finding, a sugij^estion of some- 
thing new. Mis study of and work for the gen- 
eral school system led him to plan an institu- 
tion which differed in many respects from any 
other, but which promised to supply a want 
that he perceived and the nature of which was 
illustrated by his own experience. At every step 
of his career he had felt his lack, not only of com- 
mon-school but also of technical education, such 
as the great mass does not absolutely require, 
however much they might profit by it, but such 
as would greatlv enhance the usefulness of 
those whose natural faculties and })rimarv at- 
tainments prepared them for its reception. Year 
after vear he pondered the idea of the school 
he was inventing. He carefully sifted its objects 
and its methods for acc(Min)lisliing them, and a 
clear perception of the future growth of the city's 
population was shown in his choice of a locality. 
He bought the piece of land bounded by Third 
and Fourth Avenues, Eighth Street and Astor 
Place. Here, in 1854, was laid the corner-stone 
of the C(K)per Union for the Advancement of 
Science and Art. Five years later the com- 
pleted building was transferred, in fee simple, to 
a board ol trustees, and with it a l)i"oad, liberal, 
wcll-iMidowed plan lor the perpetual education 
ol llu" \()iing ol both sexes, through the cNe, the 
I'ar, and tlu" imagination, "in all branches of 
knowledge through which men and women earn 
their bread." 



PETER COOPER 27Y 

There were to be schools in art and design, 
free lectures, free reading-rooms, collections of 
works in art and science, and a continual growth 
and addition of required appliances. wSo well 
was the original invention thought out that each 
succeeding year has testified to its practical 
utility. Its cost, with improvements, exceeds 
three-quarters of a million of dollars. It has a 
further endowment of three hundred thousand 
dollars, with a good income from parts of the 
building rented for business purposes. So long 
as he lived, its founder watched its working with 
the keen, critical eye of a master-machinist 
studving an experimental engine and enthusiastic 
over its performance. 

At an earlier day, in 1854, yet another great 
problem of the future was brought to his atten- 
tion. His next-door neighbor was a gentleman 
named Field, a retired paper manufacturer, lately 
returned from a long tour in South America. 
One evening Mr. Field came in and laid before 
his friend a remarkable scheme which he hiid 
devised for laying a telegraphic cable from 
America to Europe, across the oozy bed of the 
Atlantic Ocean. Anything better suited to the 
genius of Mr. Cooper could hardly have been 
proposed, for the magnitude of the adventure 
was hardly taken into consideration. It could 
be done, it was wonderfully well worth doing, 
and therefore it must be attempted. The idea 
was by no means new, but he and Mr. Field be- 
tween them invented new means for its accom- 
plishment. Only three other men were called 



278 MEN OF Bi'f^lJVESS 

in to organize the New York, Newfoundland & 
London Telegraph C()m])any, with Peter Cooper 
as its president and Cyrus W. Field as its right 
arm and hero. There were great difficulties to 
be overcome at the outset. A brief apparent 
success was then won, to be followed by failure 
and by twelve long years of weary waiting, but 
of continual endeavor. Mr. Cooper's faith and 
courage did not waver, but he hopefully sus- 
tained his heroic neighbor until at last a final and 
permanent victor}- was obtained, with the same 
president as at first still at the head of the com- 
pany. 

Mr. Cooper was now growing old and a large 
part of his business had been turned over to his 
son, Edward, and his son-in-law, Abram S. Hewitt, 
two abundantly capable business men. They were 
a relief in one direction, that endless activities 
might go on in others. There was a long list of 
societies, charitable mainly, in which Mr. Cooper 
was trustee and general adviser as well as a 
liberal-handed contributor. No man ever knew 
how much money went out through these chan- 
nels or in multiplied helps and givings of every 
name and nature. Besides the regular perform- 
ance of so many trusteeships there Avas a demand 
which would not be denied. Mr. Cooper was, 
by a general acknowledgment, the " first citizen " 
of the municipality he had served so well. He 
was not a politician, but any public meeting of a 
general nature, of public trouble, or of popular 
rejoicing was hardlv complete without him upon 
the platform, and his entrance was sure to be 



PETER COOPER 270 

recognized by a round of applause. The plain, 
old-fashioned buggy in which he drove around 
the city was a chariot before which all other 
vehicles turned out. The children all grew up 
to know him and to reverence his good, gray 
head, and the long evening of his busy life was 
spent in honor and in peace. 

There was one small political episode in 1876. 
Mr. Cooper had given attention to some phases 
of the currency question, and had even printed 
pamphlets setting forth his own ideas of im- 
provements upon the existing system, which on 
several occasions had failed to work well and 
was manifestly insufificient. Other men who 
were also busy with the subject organized what 
v/as called the Greenback party, with a view 
to a more liberal issue of paper currency, and 
they named him as their candidate for the Presi- 
dency. They gave him about a hundred thou- 
sand votes, but they were really not an organized 
political party, and it was only an expression of 
opinion upon one subject. 

The end of the long, useful, honorable life 
came on the 4th of April, 1883. From every 
quarter came tokens of the deep respect in which 
Mr. Cooper had been held, but not all the votes 
of societies or of financial and commercial insti- 
tutions were so high a tribute as were the 
earnest words which were uttered in the hasty 
gatherings of the working men and women who 
came to their places of meeting, as if by com- 
mon consent, to say how strong a hold he had 
won upon the popular affection. More than any 



280 MEN OF BUSINESS 

Other living man, thej had regarded him as their 
friend. He had indeed done much for them and 
for all his fellow-citizens of whatever name. It 
would be difficult to point out among the busi- 
ness men of America another success so com- 
plete at every point. That it was so was in very 
large part owing to the one controlling element 
of his character; to his irresistible tendency 
to attempt the improvement of anything and 
everything, process or substance, mechanical de- 
vice or human being, that came within the wide 
horizon of his observation. 

Years after he ceased to be seen in the places 
which so long had known him, the grateful 
memory in which he is held proposed to express 
itself in a suitable monument, the funds for which 
were provided by spontaneous popular subscrip- 
tion. It is designed and executed by the sculp- 
tor St. Gaudens, himself a pupil of the Cooper 
Union. The model is finished and the completed 
work will shortly be set up, as a visible, tangible 
representative of the better monument — the 
kindliness and the honor with which all Ameri- 
can men and women speak of Peter Cooper. 



Vy<^-- 







Marshall Field. 



XV. 

MARSHALL FIELD. 

There is a certain subtle enemy of business 
success which has proved itself difficult of analy- 
sis. In attempts to search out the causes of 
innumerable failures, the vast waste of the long- 
credit system has been sufficiently demonstrated, 
but has been set down as an inseparable factor 
of the cost of our commercial transactions. With 
equal fulness have many writers explained the 
contractional losses which have been the sure 
consequences of all artificial inflations of what- 
soever kind. In any further search for a formu- 
lation of the principles essential to success, per- 
haps no more can be learned than by a scrutiny 
of the business life of such successful men as 
have firmly refused to bear the burdens or take 
the risks which were assumed by the majority of 
their competitors, successful or otherwise. It is 
safe to say that the former will bear comparison, 
if not in number, at least in character and 
achievement, with the most brilliant commercial 
records, in the making of which other methods 
have operated. Beyond a doubt it may be 
added that each of the classes indicated calls 
for or develops its appropriate business genius. 
The course of action which seems entirely natural 



282 MEN OF BUSINESS 

for one man appears to be almost bej'ond the 
comprehension of another. 

The dry-goods establishment which is, at this 
dav, doing the largest general business in the 
United States, is not on the Atlantic Coast, but 
in Chicago. It has the great West for its market, 
and with reference to this, it is more centrally 
located than it could be elsewhere. The lakes, 
the rivers, the continually expanding railway 
system seem to have agreed together to make 
their headquarters at the foot of Lake Michigan. 
Even with reference to importations from be 
yond the Atlantic, there is offered a somewhat 
striking commentary upon the dry remark at- 
tributed to an enthusiastic Western man : 
- "New York? Yes, sir. Flourishing town, 
sir. Has a line future before it. New York is 
the seaport of Chicago ! " 

The house which seems to have best availed 
itself of the advantages offered by this pivot- 
point of distribution is that of Marshall Field 
& Co. It has been managed, through a long- 
series of years, upon distinctly formulated busi- 
ness principles, rigidly adhered to, through good 
report and bad report. While it has been served 
from its beginning by a number of rarely capable 
men, any analysis of its success is rendered more 
easily attainable from the fact that its guiding 
spirit, its somewhat autocratic, unvielding mana- 
ger, has not been changed. Its course, therefore, 
has been exceptionally uniform, and so, through 
stormy times and quiet times, has been its solid- 
it}'. The variations in its profit and loss acccjunt 



MARSHALL FIELD 283 

have at no time been traceable to any defect in 
tlie working of its machinery. 

Marshall Field was born, in 1835, near Conway, 
Mass. His father was a farmer, in only moder- 
ate circumstances, but able to give his son at least 
the advantage of a thorough home training in 
habits of industry and sound morals. Added 
to this were good public schools and the Con- 
way Academy. It was about as hopeful a be- 
ginning as a boy could have, if he were capable 
of profiting by it. 

The boy days of a New England farmer's boy 
are apt to be bright and healthy days, with 
" chores " enough to do, but with a great deal to 
awaken the adventurous spirit which, through 
several generations, has all but stripped the 
Eastern States of their energetic j^ouths for the 
benefit of the Western. 

Young Field was of a somewhat quiet and 
thoughtful disposition, but he was not fond of 
books. Neither did he take to agriculture, nor 
to any profession, for he was and felt himself to 
be a born merchant. 

Conway was a very pretty place, but it was 
very small, even for a beginner, and when, at 
seventeen, Marshall Field was permitted to set 
out upon his chosen career, he went as far as 
Pittsfield, Mass., a thriving business centre, and 
obtained employment in what may be described 
as a " country store." It was a good place to 
learn in, but no more, for any considerable suc- 
cess would have been larger than the town itself. 
At the end of four years, therefore, little more 



284 ^fEN OF BUSINESS 

had been attained than legal age, general in- 
formation, business training, and a determina- 
tion to g(J West, with Chicago as the point 
selected for settlement. 

Here, in 1856, Mr. Field became a salesman in 
the wholesale dry goods house of Cooley, Far- 
well & Co. It was already a nourishing concern, 
but the business interests of Chicago had trials 
and changes before them. The city itself was in 
what might be called its boyhood. Its streets 
and the buildings lining them were in process of 
lifting up to the new grade, which would per- 
mit the construction of adequate sewers, water 
conduits, gas mains, etc. All had been, at first, 
upon the prairie level. The wharves along 
the lake-shore, the bridges, hotels, were in 
a changing state, and getting from place to 
place by the sidewalks was an intermittent get- 
ting up and down stairs. The railway system 
centring at the foot of Lake Michigan was in its 
infancv, and the vast region it was yet to con- 
nect with a great city was but opening to culti- 
vation. Only a few miles beyond the corpo- 
rate limits were wide reaches of bare prairie 
yet untouched by the plough. In financial mat- 
ters there were endless causes of perplexity. A 
tide of immigration was setting Westward and 
the future seemed assured, but the very newness 
of all rural communities and settlements, larger 
or smaller, rendered a knowledge of local sol- 
vencies impossible. Still, it was what was called 
"flush times," but with strong symptoms of 
coming trouble. The old State banking system 



MAUmALL FIELD 285 

l)revailed and the currency of each State as to 
exclian-eable values, was a i)roblem by' itself 
which interfered seriously uith all mercantile 
transactions. Crops were increasing, year by 
year, almost in excess of facilities for handling 
them. Speculation of every kind was rampan? 
especially in real estate. Almost everybody was 
heavily in debt, and the credit of Western houses 
was subjected to sharp yet unavailing scrutiny 
at the East, for there also the general condition 
was perilous in the extreme. It was upon this 
semi-chaotic state of affairs that the great panic 
of 1857 burst like a hurricane. It seemed as if 
everything had been swept away. The banks 
and business houses closed their doors, and even 
those who expected to open them again were 
forced to sit still until the storm was over. The 
streets of Chicago swarmed with men out of 
employment, but no real injury had been done 
to Its prosperity. Only an unwholesome, fever- 
ish, unbusinesslike growth had disappeared 
eaving the field clear for legitimate operations 
followed by financial security. 

The house of Cooley, Farwell & Co. was one 
of the not very large number which survived 
the panic in good condition. It was even able 
to take up business which fell from the hands of 
broken concerns; but one of its best salesmen 
had learned an important lesson at the outset of 
his Western career. He had been compelled to 
understand the nature of new country growth 
and to study the science of credit as applied to 
such rapidly changing conditions. He had al- 



286 MEN OF BUSINESS 

ready made his mark as a young man of unusual 
promise. During the three years ioUowing he 
rose rapidly in the esteem of the firm, became a 
necessit}', and in i860 he was admitted to a jun- 
ior partnership. The financial disturbances of 
1 861 were probably less severe in the West than 
in the East, but they supplied a number of impor- 
tant object-lessons upon the general subject, the 
solution of which gave Mr. Field the main idea 
of his subsequent career. Then followed the 
remaining years of the civil war, with the swell- 
ing volume of greenbacks, national bank-notes, 
and State and national indebtedness, which again 
produced exorbitant inflations in nominal values, 
speculation, extravagance, "flush times," exceed- 
ing any which had preceded. 

The business of the house grew rapidl3^ but 
there came a necessity for a complete reorgani- 
zation in 1865. The impression made and the 
success attained by Mr. Field, up to this date, 
may be understood from the fact that he stepped 
at once to the head of the new house of Field, 
Palmer & Leiter. Only two years later other 
business interests led to the withdrawal of Mr. 
Potter Palmer, and the name of the house was 
changed to Field, Leiter & Co., with a more per- 
fect illustration of the " one-man power " at the 
head of it. 

The flush times following the war were now at 
their height. The West was filling up. State 
after State, Territory beyond Territor3^ with 
astonishing advances. The growth of the rail- 
ways and of the commerce of the lakes was 



MARSHALL FIELD 287 

something magical and bewildering. Successive 
crop figures challenged belief. The business of 
Chicagfo was as if done at red heat, and the com- 
petition for it was almost tumultuous. It was a 
time when a man in charge of enormous pur- 
chases and sales might easily have yielded to the 
strong stimulus of trade which excited the great 
mass. It was the severest possible test which 
could be applied to a business character. But as 
the heat around him increased, Mr. Field was 
cooler than ever. Some said " harder." He 
certainly was inflexible in maintaining the prin- 
ciples and perfecting the system which to his 
mind offered the one promise of permanent suc- 
cess. 

What these were may be vaguely outlined as 
the adoption of the " cash " system, with a not 
illiberal interpretation of its meaning. 

Goods sold to customers of sufficiently ascer- 
tained solvency, and not in amounts exceeding 
their requirements or capacity, were " cash " at 
thirty and sixty days, and payments were sternly 
exacted with absolute promptness. The cus- 
tomers themselves became more prudent men, 
with the certainty of so near and so sharp a set- 
tlement. Their own sales were sure to be more 
carefully made and their credits shorter. Mr. 
Field's exactness was therefore a powerful con- 
servative agency throughout the widening area 
of his business relations. 

On the purchasing side of the account the 
principle involved was applied much more rig- 
idly, for Mr. Field decided not to have any lia- 



28S MKy OF nrsixEss 

bilitics. Such credits as he permitted were 
purely uouiinal, covering- little more than the 
time required for transfer and delivery of goods 
purchased. No purchase was to be made which 
would call for a note, a promise to pay, and no 
note of his was atanv time to be found in a bank. 
So buving for cash, moreover, a varying but im- 
portant margin of advantage in prices paid was 
sure to be obtained. The best bargains came to 
the readiest payments as naturally as water runs 
down hill. 

It was a matter of course that a man so guid- 
ing his affairs should keep out of the speculative 
stock market, so far as dealing " on a margin " 
might be concerned. Shares bought for cash, as 
investments, involved no liability, whatever their 
subsequent history of profits or losses. Pre- 
cisely so with the real estate operations continu- 
ally offering in so tempting a manner as the city 
and the country grew. At the earliest possible 
day there was no mortgage upon an}' property 
owned by Mr. Field. 

In close alliance with the cash svstem of pur- 
chases, there was to be maintained an exacting 
scrutiny of the quality of all goods purchased. 
No allurement of proposed profit was to induce 
the house to place upon the market any line of 
goods at a shade of variation from their intrinsic 
value. Every article sold must be regarded as 
warranted, and every purchaser must be enabled 
to feel secure. 

'I'hat such a system, pursued w ith uiucleiiting, 
machine-like precision, would call out carping 



MARSHALL FIELD 289 

criticism was to be expected, and a great deal of 
comment came. So did the customers, attracted 
by the fairness of the prices and the soundness 
of the goods offered, even if they grumbled at 
the refusal of credits such as other houses gave 
or they might deem themselves entitled to. 

The next great test to which Mr. Field's busi- 
ness capacity was subjected was sutificiently se- 
vere, but it did not come by wa}- of a financial 
panic. There was no question of shorter or 
longer credits raised, but an enormous mass of 
property passed suddenly out of existence. 
Stock on hand, business appliances of all kinds, 
the commodious building itself, disappeared in 
the great Chicago fire of 1871. The magnitude 
of the transactions of the house at that date may 
be imagined from the sum total of the fire losses, 
for these footed up over three and a half millions 
of dollars. So prudent a man as Mr. Field 
had by no means neglected insurance. He was 
indeed fully protected but for the fact that so 
many insurance companies were wiped out, as 
by a sponge, by their overwhelming disaster. 
From solvent companies, in due season, the firm 
recovered two and a half millions, but only a 
fraction of this was speedily available. 

The city itself seemed almost to have disap- 
peared. Buyers coming to Chicago for goods 
would find, it was said, only a blackened waste, 
which would require long years to refit for busi- 
ness ])ui'p()scs. The entire c()untr\- sent svm- 
])athv and help, and the citizens ol Chicago laced 
their difficulties with admirable courage, but 
19 



290 MEN OF BUSINESS 

none did so with more imperturbable cahnness 
than was exhibited by the head of the burned-up 
dry-goods house. 

No buildings of brick or stone were left stand- 
ing, suitable for his purposes, but at the corner 
of State and Twentieth Streets were some great 
shells of horse-car barns untouched by the fire. 
The clouds of smoke were still going up from 
the burned district when Mr. Field hired these 
barns and began to fit them up for the wholesale 
and retail dry -goods business. At the same 
time gangs of men were at work clearing awa}' 
the ruins of the old place, that a better building 
than the former might be put up as speedily as 
possible. It was pushed to completion with all 
energy and was taken possession of in 1872. 

The new city, built after the fire, was in many 
respects improved. One of the business changes 
in the house of Field, Leiter & Co. was the sepa- 
ration of the retail trade from the wholesale. 
For the latter a building was at once erected at 
the corner of Madison and Market Streets. 
This department expanded to such proportions, 
however, that in 1885, to be finished in 1887, an- 
other and really splendid business building was 
begun, occupying an entire square of ground, 
bounded by Fifth Avenue, Quincy, Franklin, and 
Adams Streets. It is of granite and sandstone, 
and its plain but substantial-looking exterior is 
darkened b}' bituminous coal smoke, but its in- 
terior arrangements are hardly surpassed, for 
extent and facilities for business, by any other 
similar structure in the world. The vast variety 



MARSHALL FIELD 291 

of the demands of the trade to be supplied com- 
pels the keeping on hand continually of an enor- 
mous stock, but to many observers the most 
interesting consideration, in any study of it, 
would be the simple fact that it is all paid for. 
To this, as the swarms of buyers for rural dis- 
tributions come and go, might well be added the 
other important fact, that as it is sent out to 
hundreds of minor establishments all over the 
Western country, it will all be again paid for 
within sixty days, for the losses by Mr, Field's 
plan have been reduced to an unimportant figure. 

Only two years after the fire came the sweep- 
ing panic of 1873, but it passed over the Chicago 
" cash " drj'-goods concern with but small injury, 
while " long-credit houses " and such as were 
under varied " liabilities " went down in all di- 
rections. There could be no question raised as 
to the solvency of a concern which had no debts. 

In 1 88 1 Mr. Leiter withdrew, and the style of 
the firm changed, as at present, to Marshall Field 
& Co. It consists of its former head and eight 
juniors, all of the latter having been brought up 
in the house. Like Mr. Field himself, not one of 
them brought in any outside capital and they are 
themselves a vitally important part of his busi- 
ness ideal. However large may be the amount 
of cash employed, it is regarded as but an instru- 
mentality. The men are the real capital of the 
concern. No partners of another kind have at 
any time been desired, and Mr. Field's rare judg- 
ment of character has been finely illustrated, by 
his selection and advancement of those who, 



292 MEN OF BUSINESS 

under him, were to command in the several de- 
partments of the concern, as brigadiers and 
colonels under a major-general. Each, in his 
place, holds it by reason of merit, for there has 
been no favoritism. The same faculty of dis- 
cernment and a like process of selection have se- 
cured the most efficient assistants, women as 
well as men, in all the grades of the more than 
four thousand persons on the pay-rolls of the 
house. It is noteworthy that by far the greater 
part of them may be classed as educated as well 
as intelligent, and that continued employment 
by Marshall Field & Co. is regarded bv other 
houses as a test of fitness, a recommendation. 
The present heads of more than one flourishing 
establishment, not to speak of partners and 
otherwise prosperous men, owe their present 
positions to this stamp of approval. It may 
seem strange to those accustomed to different 
methods, that the list of employees includes no 
" drummers," in the ordinary sense of the word, 
although sales are made as far south as the Gulf 
and as far west as the Pacific Coast. On the 
other hand, the " buyers " are a large as well as 
a carefully picked company of sharp-shooters. 
While many of them are constantly on the watch 
among the importers and manufacturers of the 
Atlantic slope, not less than thirty go annually to 
Europe, and some of them even further, for all 
the looms of the earth send contributions to the 
counters of the Chicago bazaar. For example, 
in 1892 four experts visited Japan, to see what 
they could find in the very farthest East. 



MARSHALL FIELD 293 

Twenty years ago it was deemed a startling 
asseilion that Field, Leiter & Co. had sold, in 
one year, over $8,000,000 worth of goods. The 
increase, at the present day, is to nearl}^ five- 
fold, or $40,000,000. 

That the sales have been profitable, even at 
low prices and liberal expenditure, is partly 
known by the fact that Mr. Field's own real 
estate in Chicago is valued at $10,000,000, 
and by his very large holdings of railway, 
palace-car, steel and iron stocks. The business 
itself, however, is his greatest success, rather 
than any wealth accruing from it, for he has con- 
structed an enormous mechanism for the pur- 
chase and sale, collection and distribution of 
textile and related fabrics, at the smallest pos- 
sible percentage of financial risk, waste, or loss. 
He has so organized this mechanism, largely 
consisting of human characters, selected and 
educated and all directed by himself, that it 
works from day to day and from year to year, 
in all parts of the earth, but everywhere in rela- 
tion to the centre at Chicago, with a smoothness 
and uniformity which is one of the marvels of 
the world's trade. He has accomplished a tri- 
umph of system and of rigidly applied principles 
and has presented a model well worthy the close 
study of even political economists. 

It would seem almost unnecessary to paint a 
portrait of such a business man, and Mr. Field 
is precisely the person thoughtful people would 
expect. Not over the medium height and some- 
what spare but active looking, as becomes a man 



294 MEN OF BUSINESS 

whose habits have been correct from boyhood. 
Reserved and yet approachable and kindly in 
manner to any person having any business to 
encroach upon his time. In social life he is quiet 
and modest in his tastes and goes little into so- 
ciety. He has given much to charity. Though a 
Presbyterian, he was one of the heaviest contrib- 
utors to the Baptist University fund. Setting an 
example of steady devotion to business, now as in 
his younger days. While his tastes are altogether 
those of a refined and educated man, he is not 
inclined to display of any kind. He is a steady 
churchgoer, but has always been averse to poli- 
tics, beyond the regular performance of any 
duties belonging to him as a private citizen. 
He is a member of clubs and enjoys occasionally 
meeting in them his friends and acquaintances. 
In fact, his personal character may be taken as 
in a manner representative of and belonging to 
the steadfast idea of his business life. This, at 
any point, sets forth the inestimable value of 
correct principles, and of these the first to be 
named is absolute integrity. 



XVI. 

LELAND STANFORD. 

The territory included within the present 
boundaries of the United States was at one time 
nominally ruled by three great European pow- 
ers — England, France, and Spain ; really, by Ind- 
ian tribes and by a vast wilderness full of ob- 
stacles to civilized occupation. The successive 
steps, in diplomacy or in war, by which the en- 
tire area has been placed under one flag, have 
been made under the direction of a series of re- 
markable men, of whom it may be said that 
their energy in any required action was only 
equalled by their far-sighted sagacity in counbcl. 
The difficulties, physical or political, with which 
they contended, were seemingly insurmountable. 
There was no wilder dream of the future ever 
set before the minds of men than the creation 
and welding into unity of this republic. If it 
should be said that the course of all human 
events worked with them — the convulsions of 
Europe and Asia ; the introduction of steam- 
power and electricity ; the very uplifting of the 
human race to higher planes of thought and 
purpose — then only the higher estimate is called 
for by the characters of the men who were able 
to handle and control the new forces which were 



296 MEN OF BUSINESS 

operating among such vastnesses of new ma- 
terials. 

The study of the careers of these strong men 
is intensely interesting, and it is none the less 
so because in every case it appears that the 
powers born in them received their develop- 
ment in long struggles with the ordinary obsta- 
cles besetting other men. Their athletic train- 
inof-school was the common battlefield of life. 

The latest addition to the territory of the 
United States came at the close of the war with 
Mexico. Prior to that the Columbia River 
country had been a far-away possession con- 
cerning which the nation took but moderate in- 
terest, but it suddenly seemed nearer and of 
greater value when the coast-line drew south- 
ward to the Gulf of California and the future 
commerce of the Pacific passed under American 
control with the ownership of the harbor of San 
Francisco. 

The fierce excitement of the " gold fever " fol- 
lowed at once, and the California part of the 
regions acquired from Mexico was peopled rap- 
idly. It was done, however, in a manner which 
seemed to create a new State, unique in charac- 
ter, separated from the other States by long dis- 
tances and the central mountain ranges, with in- 
terests of its own which might never be brought 
into unified relations with those of the older 
commonwealths of the Atlantic slope, the Gulf 
of Mexico, and the Mississippi Valley. Our 
statesmen and politicians were already busy 
with the perilous problems of division even 




Leland Stanford. 



LELAND STANFORD 299 

among these, which were so soon to be settled by 
the bloody arbitration of the cival war. The 
future of the country, therefore, required that 
the management of all questions relating to the 
Pacific Coast should be in hands not only patri- 
otic but competent, and no one east of the moun- 
tains could so much as guess how statesmen were 
to be provided for California. Ample provision 
had been made, nevertheless, and one man who 
was to hold a foremost position, as the trusted 
counsellor of other men, had begun in his very 
childhood his long, hard training for successful 
leadership. As early as the year 1720 a family 
named Stanford, of English extraction, had 
made a home among the sturdy Dutchmen who 
were the first settlers of the Mohawk Valley, 
Matrimonial alliances followed, and succeed- 
ing generations inherited the rugged strength 
of mind and body belonging to such a parent- 
age. One hundred years after the first Stanford 
crossed the Hudson, one of his descendants \yas 
a prosperous but very hard-working farmer, liv- 
ing near Watervliet, about eight miles from Al- 
bany. He had six sons, and one of them, whom 
he named Leland, that name being in the family, 
was born March 9, 1824. 

From his very cradle, Leland was a vigorous 
fellow, and he had need to be, among a group of 
brothers and other playfellows, every one of 
whom was hardy and healthful even to rough- 
ness. The home they were brought up in, how- 
ever, was marked by rigid moral training, and 
their mental discipline began early, as well as 



300 MEN OF BUSINESS 

their practical lessons in industry. They had 
been- born into a work-a-day world, they were 
made to discover, and in the part of it near 
Watervliet there were plenty of chores for bo3's 
to do and schools to attend, but there was no 
pocket-money. 

The customary wages for grown men were 
but "two shillings," or a quarter of a dollar per 
day, for the prices of farm produce were largely 
governed by the cost of " slooping" it down the 
Hudson, 

Something could be done by a boy speculator, 
however. When Leland was only six years old 
the home garden was found to be overrun with 
horseradish, to the detriment of everything 
else. He and two of his brothers were set to 
work digging it up, and when their hard task 
was done, they carefully washed the pile of 
roots, carried them all the way to Schenectady, 
and sold them for six shillings. Leland's third 
of that first financial success, as he afterward 
declared, gave him more pride and pleasure 
than many a large harvest of money garnered in 
later years. It had its lasting influence, more- 
over, and there were other boyish enterprises to 
follow. One of these came when he was eight 
years old. It had been a good year for chest- 
nuts, and the Leland boys had taken advantage 
of it from the first frost that cracked the burrs 
and set the nuts dropping. They stored away 
bins and bags of them, and one day a hired-man 
of their father's returned from Albany with the 
welcome news that the price of chestnuts was 



LELAND STANFORD 301 

high. Off to market hurried the boys, and their 
autumn days in the woods resulted in a cash 
profit of $25. 

Mr. Stanford appears to have encouraged his 
sons systematically in every effort to bring out 
their business capacity, while he gave them such 
other schooling as circumstances permitted. 
Like most other farm-boys of that day, how- 
ever, it was school in winter and work on the 
farm in summer, with terms at the village acad- 
emy after they had gone through the highest 
classes at the " district school." 

Leland Stanford was looking forward am- 
bitiously to a higher education and to the study 
of law, but the family finances did not permit 
the idea of a college course. He could make the 
best possible use of the academy and of all ob- 
tainable books, but even then there seemed a 
wall of difficulty between him and his proposed 
legal studies. He had grown tall and strong, and 
was a capital hand in a hay-field, behind a plough, 
or with an axe in the timber ; but how could this 
help him into his chosen profession? Neverthe- 
less, it was a feat of wood-chopping which raised 
him to the bar. When he was eighteen years of 
age, his father purchased a tract of woodland, 
wished to clear it, but had not the means for 
doing so. At the same time he was anxious to 
give his son a lift. He told Leland, therefore, 
that he could have all he could make from the 
timber, if he would leave the land clear of trees. 
Leland took the offer, for a new market had lat- 
terly been created for cordwood. He had saved 



302 MEN OF nrSINESS 

nujney enough lo hire other choppers to help him, 
and he chopped for the law and for his future 
career. Over two thousand cords of wood were 
cut and sold to the Mohawk & Hudson River 
Raih'oad, and the net profit to the young con- 
tractor was $2,600. It had been earned by 
severe toil, in cold and heat, and it stood for 
something more than dollars. 

How long it required in the doing is not 
recorded, but a further course of preparatory 
studies followed, and it was not until the be- 
ginning of the year 1846 that he went to Albany 
and entered the law office of Wheaton, Doolittle 
& Hadley as a student. Three years later, in 
1849, he was admitted to the Bar of the State 
Supreme Court. His first long struggle had 
ended in apparent success, but Albany was over- 
crowded with young lawyers, and there was 
nothing to be gained by remaining there. The 
right thing to do was to go West, and he still 
had funds sufficient to sustain him while build- 
ing the foundations of a practice in some new 
and growing community. In the same year, 
1849, three of his brothers went to California, 
with the first rush of adventurers, and engaged 
in the general business of furnishing supplies 
to the miners. Perhaps there was an especial 
reason why Leland did not go with them. The 
Pacific Coast did not seem exactly the place to 
make a home in, but he was just then thinking, 
and somebody else was waiting for a home. 

His first purpose was to settle in Chicago, 
then in what has been called the " swamp stage " 



LELAND STANFORD 303 

of its earlier growth, and it is said the abundance 
and fierceness of the mosquitoes did more than 
anything else to prevent him. He could have 
endured them himself, but it seemed better to 
go on to another place. He found a promising 
opening at Port Washington, on Lake Michi- 
gan, above Milwaukee. Business came to him 
at once, and it was not long before he went 
back to Albany and married Miss Jane Lathrop, 
daughter of a prosperous merchant named Dyer 
Lathrop. 

The professional career, for which so much toil 
and preparation had been given, had opened 
very well indeed. He even began to think of 
politics, and took a leading part in the establish- 
ment of a local newspaper. He was not to make 
his home on the shore of Lake Michigan, how- 
ever, nor to do his life-work in the Northwest, 
for he was needed elsewhere. His house, with 
his office, law library, and other property, were 
destroyed by fire, and he was left almost a bank- 
rupt. Now, however, the Golden State held out 
to him a better invitation than at first. His 
brothers were doing well there, and the signs of 
social order were increasing rapidly. The ruins 
of his first undertaking were therefore left be- 
hind him, and he and his wife reached Sacra- 
mento on July 12, 1852. 

Any idea of a professional life, however, had 
been burned up with his law library, and he be- 
came a merchant, taking charge for his brotlicrs 
of their branch establishment at Michigan Bluffs, 
in Placer County. 



304 MEN OF BUSINESS 

He had made a great change in all his plans of 
life, but so had every other man who was seek- 
ing a fortune in California. The circumstances 
were altogether different from those of an older 
community. Swarms of men who were stran- 
gers to each other were ready to accept, almost 
as an old acquaintance, the burly, hearty, genial 
young merchant from whom they made pur- 
chases and heard the news as they came in from 
the placers. His personal popularity became a 
powerful element of business success, and all the 
more so because it was discovered that he pos- 
sessed uncommon sagacity and that any kind of 
advice from him was pretty safe to follow. The 
man to whom other men habitually come for 
advice is sure to acquire the subtle, inscrutable 
force recognized rather than named as " influ- 
ence." 

The other Stanford brothers were men of en- 
terprise and capacity, and their business connec- 
tions widened until they reached in every direc- 
tion among the almost grotesquely developing 
communities of the new State. They were not 
long in learning, however, that the best head 
among them was on the shoulders of Leland, 
and, in 1856, he was called upon to remove to 
Sacramento, with a full share in the interests of 
the concern. He had made, in the meantime, 
profitable mining adventures which gave him 
private capital at his own disposal. He had done 
something of much greater importance also, for 
he had taken a deep interest in political matters, 
and he had comprehended, better than other 



LELAND STANFORD 305 

men, the tremendous nature of the questions 
which were soon to press for settlement. 

A very large part of the adventurous migra- 
tion to California had come from the slavehold- 
ing States. There were no abler nor more dar- 
ing men, and they had brought with them their 
peculiar political doctrines and ideas concerning 
State rights and the slavery question. Each suc- 




W^ £" ^^"^ 



.^ rk'^yAiiy. 



'wl 



V 
I i 



ill III t"rfi*^lt|.'^. 




- 1* -^ ku "*' 

*c- ^» A* ill ■,\i I ii " %i 

Architectural motif of the buildings at Stanford University. 

cessive political campaign grew hotter, as the 
restless spirits of the Pacific Coast emulated the 
rashness and repeated the utterances which were 
producing such a perilous fermentation among 
the Atlantic and Gulf States. 

Strong local coteries were forming, in which it 
was openly declared that if the Scnith should se- 
cede from the Union, so would California, or at 
least its southern half, with slavery as an institu- 
tion, and the old i-epublic might split into all 
20 



306 MEN OF BUSINESS 

the pieces vaguely indicated by its climate and 
geography. 

Mr. Stanford, now in the prime of his man- 
hood, grasped the entire situation with a breadth 
of thought and a courage of action which brought 
him at once to the front as an acknowledged 
leader. He saw distinctly that there were two 
great agencies, neither of them yet in existence, 
for the prevention of the vast calamities which 
threatened the future of the nation and of Cali- 
fornia. One, already organizing in 1856, was the 
new Republican party. The other, in like man- 
ner outlined but not yet made, was the proposed 
railway line across the continent, bringing its too 
widely separated parts together. To each of 
what he deemed parallel and related move- 
ments he gave all the energy that he could 
spare from his increasing business affairs, until 
these had almost to be put aside on behalf of the 
greater burdens which came fast upon him. 

The new party prospered well in the Presi- 
dential campaign of 1856, in California, with 
many incidents which were dramatic and some 
that were tragical, and from that time onward it 
gathered strength from day to day. So did the 
railway enterprise, and a group of strong men, 
unsurpassed in genius, patriotism, and daring, 
stood shoulder to shoulder with Mr. Stanford. 

In April, 1859, the State Legislature passed a 
resolution calling for a railway men's conven- 
tion, to meet in San Francisco in Sei)tcmber of 
that year. When it came together it consisted 
of delegates from every part of the State and 



LELAND STANFORD 307 

from Oregon and Washington Territories. Every 
feature of the project was fully discussed and a 
committee was appointed to present to Congress 
a memorial, indicating the route preferred and 
asking for national aid in the construction of a 
road to meet the proposed railway from the East 
at a point on the California line. During the re- 
mainder of that year the entire Pacific railway 
idea was almost constantly before Congress, and 
it had become a prominent factor of current 
party politics. These were becoming more and 
more feverish, for there was something like a 
civil war in Kansas, and the clouds of coming 
trouble were darkening for a storm. 

When the Republican National Convention 
met at Chicago, in i860, Leland Stanford was 
there, as a delegate from his own State, urging 
the nomination of Abraham Lincoln in prefer- 
ence to any other man. He returned to throw 
himself into the canvass with enthusiasm, but at 
the same time to push forward more eagerly 
than ever the work of preparation for what he 
regarded as the Union railway, more important 
than an army corps. 

In the spring of 1861, while the opposing 
armies were gathering in the East, a meeting 
was held at the St. Charles Hotel, Sacramento, at 
which only the leaders of the railway enterprise 
were present. The work before them related to 
surveys, legislation, and finance. It was deter- 
mined that efficiency could be best obtained by 
concentration and unity of action. On the 28th 
of June the Central Pacific Railroad Company 



308 MEN OF BUSINESS 

of California was organized under the State law, 
with a nominal capital of $8,500,000. Enough 
was subscribed, and enough money was paid in 
to meet immediate expenses. Mr. Stanford was 
chosen president; CoUis P. Huntington, vice- 
president ; Mark Hopkins, treasurer ; James 
Bailey, secretary, and T. J. Judah, chief engi- 
neer. These were also directors, with Charles 
B. Crocker, John F. Morse, D. W. Strong, imd 
Charles Marsh. 

The simple fact that such men selected Mr. 
Stanford for the executive head of the undertak- 
ing renders comment superfluous. They knew 
him well, and their verdict may be accepted as 
final concerning his relations to them and to the 
seemingly impossible task before them. They 
presented him to Congress and the nation as 
their representative, and through all the long, 
arduous struggle which followed he more than 
justified the wisdom of their choice. 

The ditiftculties to be overcome were manifold, 
for there were all sorts of mountains in the way. 
It was true that President Lincoln, the Republi- 
can party, and so the National Government, were 
pledged to the idea of a Pacific railway, but then 
the Government itself was fighting for life and 
its finances were in an exceedingly strained con- 
dition. The four men, including Mr. D. O. Mills, 
who were to bear the responsibility of success or 
failure, had indeed been very successful in busi- 
ness, but their cash capital free for use was by 
no means large, and they were but little known 
in tlie money markets ol the East. 



LELAND STANFORD 309 

The first shovelful of dirt on the line of the 
proposed road was thrown by Mr. Stanford him- 
self February 22, 1861, before the organization 
of the company. Surveys and work went on and 
continual payments were made, in faith and in 
hope, but it was not until July, 1862, that Mr. 
Judah returned from Washington with the for- 
mal proposition for the construction of the road, 
authorized by Congress. Its provisions were 
exacting, but they were accepted by the com- 
pany December i, 1862. Two years were given 
them for building the first fifty miles of road, but 
forty miles were to be constructed and equipped, 
telegraph line and all, before the issue of gov- 
ernment bonds in aid. These were to be loaned 
to the company at the rate of $16,000 per mile to 
the foot of the mountains and $48,000 per mile 
through them. That first forty miles offered a se- 
vere test of all the capacity of every kind pos- 
sessed by the adventurers. The toil was cease- 
less, and the anxiety almost prevented sleep. 
Even after that success was won and the aid 
came, it Avas not always easy to realize upon 
construction bonds, while the Treasury itself 
could with difficulty obtain funds to pay and feed 
the army in the field. 

Whatever credit is due to Mr. Stanford's asso- 
ciates, he himself superintended the construction 
of five hundred and thirty miles of railroad in two 
hundred and ninety-three days. It was a build- 
ing-race against a very similar party of men 
who were pushing forward the rails of the Union 
Pacific Road from the East. On the last day of 








i^^rn.- 






View of the Buildings Comprising the Leland 

the race, Mr. Charles B. Crocker, in immediate 
charge of the work, laid the rails upon ten miles 
of track, and the last spike was driven at Pro- 
montory Point, Utah, May lo, 1869. Mr. Crocker 
himself never recovered from the effects of the 
terrific strain which he endured, although he 
lived till 1888, but Mr. Hopkins died in 1876, and 
it is said that all the other managers looked back 
upon that race as an ordeal which took some- 
what of life out of them. 

Mr. Stanford had by no means neglected the 
other field of his public duty, for he had taken a 
firmer hold upon the politics of California. He 
at first refused any suggestion of office-holding, 
but in 1862 accepted the Republican nomination 
for Governor of the State and was elected by a 
plurality of twenty-three thousand votes. At 
the close of his term he refused a renomination, 
for the war for the Union was practically won and 
the railway demanded his undivided attention. 

With the year 1869 began a long era of almost 







Stanford, Jr., University, Palo Alto, California. 



ideal prosperity. There was a continual press- 
ure of work and responsibility, for Mr. Stanford 
was still president of the Central Pacific and was 
interested in other enterprises, railway and fi- 
nancial, but he was now able to take from these 
ample time for home life and for the gratification 
of very, strongly marked tastes and tendencies. 

His home itself became a kind of special con- 
tribution to the peculiar agricultural interests of 
California. He owned the Palo Alto ranch, in 
Tahama County, about thirty miles south of San 
Francisco, one of the best and largest ranches in 
the State. Here he had built a villa residence 
of much architectural beaut3\ with ample and 
well laid-out grounds, and supplied with all that 
wealth could obtain for comfort, as well as with 
treasures of art and literature. 

As the home of such a man, it became an ob- 
jective point in the plans of numberless distin- 
guished people visiting California. It was the 
very abode of cordial hospitality, but the estate 



312 MEN OF BUSINESS 

itself became something more. At a very early 
day Mr. Stanford had taken a sagacious inter- 
est in two, at least, of the most promising feat- 
ures of Pacific-slope farming. One was the 
peculiar advantages of both soil and climate for 
fruit raising, and the Palo Alto ranch became 
an experimental fruit farm on a large scale. 
Hardly anything w\as left untried, but special 
attention was paid to the vine, with such success 
that in due time the largest vineyard in the 
world was proving by its abundant productive- 
ness the wisdom of its owner. In the 3'ear 1888 
it contained 3,575 acres and the vines in bear- 
ing numbered 2,860,000. At least an equal 
importance attached in Mr. Stanford's mind 
to what some men called his other hobby. He 
had perceived that the breed of horses pro- 
duced in California, from whatever derivation, 
was assuming a pronounced type, with indica- 
tions of peculiar value. Every other part of the 
earth presents the same evidence of the tendency 
and capacity of man's best four-footed com- 
panion to adapt himself to his circumstances, 
but Mr. Stanford proposed to aid and guide the 
process manifestly going on. His great ranch, 
therefore, contained, in lavish provision of all 
appliances, an admirable horse-breeding farm, 
and the results obtained soon made it famous. 

The best imported stock was brought from 
American and European stables, that the quali- 
ties of all might be blended in the new develop- 
ment. The Stanford stables sent out a long 
list of swift and beautiful creatures, whose per- 



LELAKD STANFORD 



313 



formanccs, in the East as well as in the West, 
were a source of unbounded gratification to their 
breeder. He made their very anatomical struct- 
ure a study, with reference to the relations of 
bone, muscle, and tendon to the movements of 
bodies and limbs. A curious series of experi- 
ments in instantaneous photography enabled 
him to illustrate effectiyely his ideas and obser- 




The Inner Quadranglp, Stanford University. 

vations concerning equine action. The Palo 
Alto ranch, therefore, became a kind of experi- 
mental school in several important departments 
of investigation ; but an increased and permanent 
educational value was 3'et to attach to it. 

As the 3'ears went by, the exceedingly busy 
life, of which only so brief an outline can be 
given, was varied by various tours of combined 
business and pleasure; but in 1884 Mr. Stanford 
was in Europe. With him were his wife and 
their only son, Leland Stanford, Jr. The latter 



314 MEN OF BUSINESS 

was a vouiii;- man who seemed to have inherited 
the nuaHties ot body and mind and character 
which would fit him for the manao^ement of the 
other estate which would some day pass into 
his hands. He was the heir, and his father and 
mother h)oked upon him as the continuation of 
their own life. At FU)rence, Italy, however, he 
was smitten bv the deadly fever of the Roman 
coast, and in a few days the}- were childless. 

The saddened return to their California home 
at once presented them with the question, 
" What shall be done with all these millions, 
and with the Palo Alto ranch ? " It was 
answered worthily. Young Stanford, like his 
father, had been deeply interested in the general 
subject of both technical and higher education. 
Whatever he might have done in that direction, 
if he had lived, should now be done in his name. 
His parents, therefore, founded Leland Stanford, 
Jr., University, endowing it with the ranch 
itself and with other ]iroperty of an estimated 
prospective value in all of about $20,000,000. 
The first annoinicement, in 18S5, was met with 
varied expressions of strong approval and of 
captious doubt, but the latter ceased when the 
peculiar character of the proposed institution 
came to be generally understood. The corner- 
stone of the university buildings, about half a 
mile south from the Stanford residence at Palo 
Alto, was laid May 14, 1887. In his address on 
this occasion, Mr. Stanford referred to the ex- 
pressions of dissent, but said, for himself and his 
wife : " We do not believe there can be superHu- 



LELAND STANFORD 



315 



oiis education. A man cannot have too much 
health and intelligence, so he cannot be too 
highly educated." His meaning became clearer 
upon an examination of the proposed university 
course, and upon finding that it included teleg- 



■.••AN\"»A\\\\:/..- 







Northeast Tower, Stanford University. 



raphy, type - writing, journalism, book-keeping, 
farming, civil-engineering, and the general prep- 
aration of human beings for success and useful- 
ness. As was roughly expressed by one critic, 
" It isn't to be just another Greek and Latin 
mill." 

Two years later, in 1887, Mr. Stanford was 



316 MEN OF BUSINESS 

elected a Senator of the United States from 
California. From that time forward, during the 
greater part of each year, his residence was 
necessarily in Washington, and here again his 
home became a social centre, noted for the re- 
fined liberality of its entertainments. He was 
as cordial, as genial as ever, and he was accepted 
in political circles as the man whose counsel was 
of greatest weight with reference to all ques- 
tions affecting the country west of the Rocky 
Mountains, but his capacity for work was leav- 
ing him. Year after year there were increasing 
tokens that the toils and anxieties of earlier da}- s 
had made hidden inroads upon his natural vital- 
ity. The best medical skill, utter temperance, 
changes of air and scene were of no avail for 
the restoration of forces expended in the per- 
formance of such a vast amount of exceedingly 
hard work and endurance. 

At the close of the session of Congress, in the 
spring of 1893, he went back to his Palo Alto 
home, well aware that he should never return to 
Washington. It was entirely characteristic of 
the man that when, on June 20th, as the clock 
hands met for midnight, he quietly passed away, 
and his death was telegraphed over the country, 
it was speedily declared of him that all his 
affairs were in such perfect order and prepara- 
tion that there would be no shock nor any harm 
resulting to any person, or interest, or enter- 
prise. He left a very large estate, truly, but the 
work to which he had set his hands was done 
and he could safely leave it. 



LELAND STANFORD 317 

It has been said that great business careers 
such as are outlined in this volume are no lon- 
ger possible. The idea presented is, that in the 
full development and organization of trade its 
managers become somewhat like conductors of 
railway trains whose finished mechanism runs 
smoothly along tracks provided for them by 
earlier enterprise. There is no T-rail track, 
with perfect bridges, for the operations of Amer- 
ican business. The truth is fairly presented by 
an army in the field, and the time will never 
come for a cessation in the demand for good 
generals. 

If competition itself were not continually 
opening channels for new energy, there are rap- 
idly recurring times of trial when the great 
problems of success or failure are, like Abraham 
Lincoln at the outbreak of the civil war, grop- 
ing around among unknown men for the cour- 
age and capacity fitted to lead a brigade, a di- 
vision, or an army corps to something better 
than defeat. The best men will surely step to 
the front if they are at hand when the occasion 
calls for them. The occasions are innumerable, 
for the most encouraging truth, after all, is that 
sufficient business success for the reward of 
rational ambition is within the reach of the 
million. 



THE END. 



UN 30 



